There are many things that make a parent roll their eyes, shrug their shoulders and give the look of “oh well they are after all kids”, and I have those moments usually daily.  Those moments sometimes make me chuckle like a 6th grade boy all over again.

Genuine Baby, or I guess he is actually the toddler now and I should change the moniker, has been trying to be potty trained but for whatever reason he kind of lost hope one day and stopped trying to earn our praise.  He is currently in the Huggies Pull-ups.  Part of the problem is that he is completely obsessed with his “Kachow”, or for those of you that have not seen the movie Cars 45,678 times like I have, the character of Lightning McQueen.  He has the Hot Wheels car of Lighting McQueen and he refers to it as his Kachow.  He had “The King” but for whatever reason he wanted to see if that car could swim and flushed it down the toilet, but I digress.

He wears the pull-ups and refers to the characters as “My Sally”, “My Kachow”, “My Mater” and well you get the idea.  I tried once to tell him that he cannot pee in the pull-ups because he would be peeing on his Kachow but he only looked at me like I was smoking crack.   The makers of Huggies Pull-ups make it easy to determine if the child has peed in the pull-up because they have little cups on the front. These cups are made to look like the Piston Cup that is the award in the movie for winning the season, not unlike that of the Cup in the real NASCAR season.  The cups on the front will disappear when the diaper becomes wet.  I am forever giggling when looking at or thinking of these cups disappearing, not because I enjoy my child not being potty trained but because of the movie quote of Mater (voiced by Larry the Cable Guy):

Lightning McQueen: I’m serious! He’s won three Piston Cups!
Mater: [spits out fuel] He did WHAT in his cup?

Even the three year old is getting into the game as he ran to me this morning and shouted:

Genuine Toddler:  Daaaaad, his cups are gone again!!!!

Genuine:  What?

Genuine Toddler:  His Piston Cups are gone.

Genuine:  “He did WHAT in his cup?” [giggle, snort]

See it is the little things that keep us parents going some times.  I do suggest that if you don’t have kids or have not yet seen Cars, you run out and see it right away.  To the makers of Huggies I love your sense of humor in putting Piston (pissed in) Cups on the front of your diapers.

You may be wondering why I suddenly started posting here at my Daddy blog and I guess it was more than time for that to happen. I suppose you could say that I was made to feel guilty for not posting by actually being honored as a top Daddy blogger.

I was first listed on Guy Kawasaki’s site called Alltop Dads. This site was dedicated to listing some of the top names in niche’s listed in many different categories. This blog was listed in the top 50 of Dad bloggers. You can find many other (and in my mind better) bloggers in the Daddy niche just by clicking through to those listed. They also have Alltop mommy bloggers and many other niches. I suggest you take a look. I suppose it got me off my butt to not suck anymore.

35

The other reason was the Parent Power Index. I am listed on the Parent Power Index and I guess if I am an influencer in this space I should probably at least blog about the subject I’m supposed to influence. This is a great list of parenting blogs with all the usual suspects but then many others that I had never seen or heard of before. I think its a great way to get some good exposure for your blog and at the same time a great way to find like minded bloggers and increase your own readership. Submit your site if you are a parenting blogger.

Technorati Tags: Daddy Blogs, Daddy Bloggers, Alltop, Parent Power Index

I have often said that I bang out the movie quotes with the best of them.  Usually it is spurred by saying something in relation to something someone else has said, or situational comedy fun.  I am happy to say my sons are following in my footsteps.

My 2 year old son acting like he has been smoking loco weed and making funny sounds and bouncing off the walls today made me mutter under my breath “freak.”  Yeah, his hearing is better than I thought, and he decided to bust out his own movie quote from Alvin and the Chipmunks singing:

“Don’t you wish your girlfriend was a freak like me…” ~Genuine Baby

*sigh* 

I had tears well up a few times thinking about that one today.  He is such a little Genuine man.

A few years back my friend Mindy of the Mommy Blog sent me a video that she had been sent about children’s valium called Kidstoned. I ran across it again on YouTube the other day and I had to share it again. I need to find out which of my local pharmacies sells this over the counter.

I have been doing my own self study since becoming a stay at home dad.  After more than a year and a half of this work I have drawn some conclusions, the main conclusion of which is that being a stay at home parent is hard work.

The grass is always greener until you have had a chance to munch on that greener grass for a while.  Then other fences get built and you begin to peer over those fences to see a different shade of green.  I suppose that is what makes life become less stagnant.

I sit here in front of my computer at 4:00 a.m. as I am not only a stay at home dad but I am also a business owner and run a full-time business from home.  As you can see where this is headed, with parenting 24/7 and also worrying about business and being the entrepreneur, I am trying to live both worlds.  At the end of this month, a life changing event takes place.  The life changing event is called “summer vacation.”  I’ll have all four of the kids at home to make my job a little bit harder on all fronts.

How am I going to handle this new challenge?  I have decided to throw out all the child labor laws and put my kids to work.  Genuine Girl will be handling all contracts and accounting issues since I can no longer help with her math homework and she can negotiate with the best.  Genuine Boy will handle all operations as he seems to be able to run many different facets of his Nintendo DS and still watch cartoons at the same time.  Genuine Toddler and Baby (not so much baby anymore) will be in charge of production.  They can tell stories until they are blue in the face so they will be producing all blogging content.

Me?  I think I’ll look over the fence and see what shade the grass is for my next adventure.  I’m thinking of taking up being a pirate.

We have been watching our own kids this weekend and we have had an addition of a few more added to the mix. My brother-in-law has been helping his wife that is sick and in the hospital and we volunteered to take the clan of kids. That adds another 5 year old and six year and the coup de gras is the fact that they also have 4 month old twins. Yes, it feels like a war zone here and we now realize why we decided not to have more kids. It’s nice to have some other kids for our kids to play with but I’m glad we don’t have to add four more college funds to the program (actually we haven’t started the four we need). I mentioned that we had eight kids 8 years old and under to a client today and the response? Whoa. Yeah, it’s a typical reaction. Wish me luck.

The fourth year of the The 2007 BoB Awards are off and running and taking nominations.  Right now we are missing many of my Mommy Blogger friends and Daddy Blogger friends so make sure you get over there and nominate your favorites and even nominate yourself.

Our kids have never been kids that go to bed easy.  They obviously take after their insomniac daddy.  We start the game the same way every night.  Their bedtime is 8:00 every night.  By 10:30 or 11:00 p.m. they may finally succumb to sleep.

I have tried no naps (not recommended for a work at home parent) and have tried wearing them out at the park, (not a productive exercise for daddy’s work) and have even tried waking them up early.  Most of all of these things make for a cranky child.  Not real sure how to overcome the problem.

They need me to sit in the room with them and remind them every 30 seconds to close their eyes and go to sleep.  I’m wondering if Nanny 911 could get them to sleep.  Probably, I hate that she is so successful with kids.

This is what happens when they finally succumb to the sleep fairy.

Sorry Blog for I have sinned it’s been far too long since I last posted.  It was four years ago that I began my blog on my birthday March 1.  Actually this year I was able to celebrate my real birthday which is February 29th!  I will begin posting again here as I need to get back into updating what is happening in my life and the lives of my family.  I know that if you are in my family you have mentioned that I need to start updating again as well.  So I suppose I should get back into the ring and take another swing!

I know I may appear to be off the grid, of course, I am just a little busy these days.  Busy with what?  Well you know how life sometimes throws curve balls, I have had more than just a few in recent months and it has certainly changed my blogging habits.  If those of you that are on Twitter want to see what I’m doing all the time, feel free to follow me, and let me follow you.  Here is my Twitter page!

I had to take a moment to talk Toddlers.  Genuine Toddler is now three and Genuine Baby is now into the terrible 2’s so I guess I have to rename them, but for now for the sake of making it clear who I am talking about, the three year old shall be the “toddler” as it relates to this conversation.

Genuine: Did you just take that car from your brother?

Genuine Toddler:  I not reewy sure.

Genuine:  You’re not really sure? 

Genuine Toddler:  Nope.

Genuine:  How about you stand in a time out until you are really sure?

Genuine Toddler: [walking to time out] Okay.

Genuine Baby: [screaming in that lose your dental fillings pitch] Me Kachow*!!!!!!

Genuine:  Stop screaming!  Do you want time out?

Genuine Baby:  [shoves brother out of time out showing bird perch lip] Daddy goofba!

Genuine:  I’m not a goof ball!

Genuine Toddler:  Yeah you is.

How is it that the combined ages of the two smallest children can be added together and make me feel like they are the adults?

*Kachow = Lightning McQueen [referring to what he says in the movie]