Things Emmy Says, Part 6

As she was putting on her Easter dress: "The Easter Bunny is gonna see me and say, "Look at that fancy girl!"" - Singing on the toilet: "Pooooop is coooooming. Poooooop is coooooooming." Me: "Emmy, don't sing about your poop." Emmy: "OK. Your pooooop is coming. Your pooooop is coooooming." Me: "Em, don't sing about poop at all." Emmy:...

Fourth Anniversary

Today marks my 4th year of being married to my lovely wife, and my 9th year of being with her in general. I've gotten comfortable in our relationship, but when I stop to think back on the kind of person I was when I met her I realize how much I owe her. If she hadn't taken a chance on me I would probably be a wreck of a human being living...

Overboard on Easter

Emmy was born on February 1st, so Easter was the first kid-oriented holiday to come along. After you have your first child you tend to get a little bit excited when those sorts of things come around for the first time, so we went pretty overboard. As a parent it's fun to try to make holidays as magical as possible for your child. We still...

A Shit List, for the Future

I don't often get days off of work. In fact, I usually never do unless I pay someone else to fill in for me. Every once in awhile though, my father-in-law has some time off of his own work and covers for me. Usually he has to really push it because I'd rather just do it myself, but that's besides the point. Today he had the day off and he...

Denied Again

Turns out I failed pretty hard at not getting my hopes up for that job. And of course it fell through, like they always do. After weeks of waiting for a call back after my interview, I started to call them. Every day for over a week I'd just be told that someone would call back in a few hours and they never did. Finally I got through...

A Bygone Era

It's a little odd that my daughter's first obsession with a show was Thomas the Tank Engine. I've never ridden on a train in my entire life. Considering I see them tearing up old tracks constantly it's extra likely that she won't ever ride in a train as well, unless it is older-looking one for attractions and such. They've been tearing...

Um, uh, you know, like

Earlier when the power went out for three and a half hours, I used the time to edit a podcast I'd recorded with a friend more than a month ago and had been sitting on. Most of the time when I record a podcast it is only me. I sit down, talk about five different bands, and then stop. After I cut out the large gaps of silence where was thinking...

Anxiety of Speech

From a young age I was conditioned to be wary of putting myself out there. I never had very high self-esteem and when I stuck my neck out there to say something or make a joke I was either cut down by my father or mocked by my brother. In my mind everything is magnified a thousand times. When I jump out there and make a joke about something...

Names Aren't Logical

We're being raised in a time when people are trying their best to make their children's names as unique as possible. No one seems to want to name their kids something boring and common, I get that. But when someone has free reign to ignore all that has come before them, it gets a bit out of hand. You could technically name your child a...

The Night Fight: Rounds 2 & 3

So, I'm not entirely sure what to do at this point. The night before last I had an awful time getting Emmy to sleep in her own bed. You might recall that this was one of her first nights with the stuffed owl we let her make to help her feel safe sleeping in her bed. Well, it didn't really work. I spent an hour and a half trying and failing....

Scaredy Cat

I'm not exactly the bravest person in the world. There are very few rides that I can go on at the fair each year without getting more than a little freaked out and panicking a bit inside my head. Apparently I passed some of that onto Emerson. This weekend we met up with all of Emmy's cousins of the same age at some place called Play World....

Bunny and Her Magic Powers

Our state tax return check came in the mail the other day and it was a glorious time of celebration. On top of using it to pay off all of our bills for this month, we had a little extra to use on something a bit more frivolous. Upon weighing the options, there was only one real choice. As I've written about before, Emmy is having a...

Calm, Peaceful Nights

It's easy for me to complain about my job -- and I've done it plenty of times -- but there are several things I love about it as well. I wrote about being trusted and left to do my job without being micromanaged already, which is something I love about it, but there's more. Particularly the weekend night-time deliveries. Saturday and Sunday...

Modding Aspirations

As if I needed anything else to occupy my time, I've decided I want to start making modded game gadgets. Now, I know what you're going to say. I constantly set goals for myself that I never follow-through on, but maybe if I actually write these aspirations out this time I'll make good on them. I've thought a lot about a possible career...

Expendable Incomes

In this struggling economy I really can't complain much about my job, because I actually have one. Still, there's something that I kind of miss having: an expendable income. We get by. Sometimes it's a little tight, but we get our bills paid on time and have enough to buy birthday and Christmas gifts when the time comes. But there isn't...

The Night Fight

Emmy has slept in between my wife and I since she was born. A habit that has been reinforced for three years is pretty hard to break. Last night the kid and I went up to bed at about 11:30. We got in our bed and I read her a few books, then I told her she needed to go get in her bed. After some coaxing she gave in and I turned out the light....

Bratty Behavior

Despite our best efforts to be the best parents we can be, I feel like Emerson has started to turn into a royal terror as of late. Most of the time she just completely ignores us we tell her to stop doing something or to come here or pick something up. You know, I used to watch those nanny shows and scoff at how obvious solutions were. I'm beginning to think I'm actually an awful parent...

Growing up with Music, From the Parent's Perspective

This morning when Emmy came downstairs I pulled out the headphones on the World/Inferno Friendship Society I was listening to, scooped her up, and started dancing like a fool around the room. She thought it was fun for one song but then she wanted me to hurry up and take a shower so we could go shopping for her Easter dress. While I was...

Just a Little Respect

Alright, I'll try to start off this blog without seeming in the least bit full of myself. If you've read any of my other posts then you'll know I'm hardly my own biggest fan, but I can say with absolute certainty that I when a job is put in front of me I work my ass off to do it the very best I can. I take pride in the fact that I always...

I'm Sick of People Being Sick of [...] Shit

I am sick of people being sick of my shit. If you are not into the wacky hi-jinks then why the hell are you into this? Information wants to be free charged particles expand through space then bleed through greedy fingers and explode in your face I can't wait. Alright, so World/Inferno Friendship Society were singing about their own things,...

Parental Corner Cutting

Three is a magical age when it doesn't matter to a child where their new toy came from, or even if it's new. This morning as I approached the end of my paper route, I came upon a motorized, kid-sized Gator (those oversized go-karts that people use to drive around fairgrounds and farms and stuff when they want to drive a go-kart but have...

You're the Reason I'm not Religious

Back when that giant earthquake and subsequent tsunami hit Japan, stupid people came out of the woodwork. An alarmingly large amount of them decided they were clever to relate the earthquake as some sort of karmic retribution for Pearl Harbor (as if those bombs weren't enough). I took one of these people to task on Facebook, as he had most...

Ice Storm

We've had some interesting weather on account of Michigan not being able to figure out what season it is. After a few days of a warm 60 degrees and sun, it plummeted back down to the 20s and started raining. For the most part I hate freezing rain and ice storms as they've become common here and are usually awful to drive in, but this one...

Speed is Relative

Some time back when I was in middle school my family took a vacation up to a campground somewhere in the thumb part of Michigan. We set off in a convoy of rented RVs like some kind of awful Robin Williams movie off for an adventure of some kind. More than halfway through the trip we came behind a truck pulling a camper of it's own. As a...

Developing That Thick Skin

I've never taken well to criticism, and when writing online that's kind of a big issue. The real issue is that I blow things out of proportion and perceive them as an insult when they likely weren't meant that way. This unhelpful character trait would have likely helped to cripple my advancement into adulthood, were it not for Zoe coming...

Job Interview: Round 2

Tonight I will be returning to the Meijer warehouse where I was supposed to be interviewed last week an attempt once again to actually be interviewed. Hopefully the person who scheduled my interview will actually be there this time to interview me. And if so, I will try my best to make a good impression. Look, it's not that I'm being pessimistic...

Deer are Morons

I don't get deer. I mean, I know they have a much smaller brain than we do, but it seems like they should be able to figure out that a car will kill them. Imagine a gazelle hidden behind some brush when suddenly a lion comes running past. Would that gazelle decide to make a mad dash right in front of the path of that lion, or would they...

Things Emmy Says Part 5

The weather is warmer and some of the snow is melted, and as we were driving down the road she started yelling, "SNOW! GRASS! GRASS! SNOW! SNOW! GRASS! SNOW!" When I was sitting down at the laptop she picked up a toy whale and stuck it just over the top of the screen and started saying in a low voice, "Giiiiive me baaack my compuuuuuteeeeer." Just...

American Owned: Stupid People in my Home Town

There is a restaurant in my town with the words "American Owned" on the signboard out front. This, of course, could only mean "White Owned" because you'd have to be an American citizen in order to own a business in the country. It is an obvious response to the fact that there are two Indian families that have each bought a couple of failing...

Resisting the Douchebaggery of Parenthood

"Little Timmy just took his first steps!" "Oooooh, that's so wonderful! He's gonna get in all sorts of trouble now! Better keep an eye out! How old is he now? 15 months? Oh good. Billy took his first steps at 10 months." This sort of thing is exactly the kind of person I do not want to become now that I'm a parent. It's pretty easy to...

The Job Hunt: Disappointment Manifested

I'm not good at searching for jobs. It's too easy for me to get discouraged and stop being productive about it. Searching for openings and filling out applications and calling in to check up on them and going in for interviews, only to never hear back from them really turns me off from the whole process. I've had several "sure-fire" connections...

Things Emmy Says, Part 4

She walked up to me with her motorized Thomas train and said it wasn't working well. I looked and there was hair or a string or something wrapped around the wheel, so I told her I'd warned her about using it on the carpet and I wasn't going to fix it right now. She came back awhile later and told me she had fixed it. She had taped over...

Nope, March Sucks Too

Well, I was hoping things would start getting better now that February was over. I should have known better to believe a month had magical powers over my life. Things just like to go wrong no matter what month it is. Before I even got to fixing the shocks that I need to replace, the wheel cylinder busted on my rear passenger tire. This...

Making it Through February

I used to laugh when people said things about certain months being particularly unlucky, but February has come to be a time of great stress in my life. Now sure, three years ago I was lucky enough to see my first child born on the first of February, but that may have come to haunt me later. After barely making it through Christmas each...

Interview with Emmy #2

I've gotta catch up on my One A Day posts, so I put it to Twitter to ask Emmy some more questions. This time I recorded her responses. Commence with your "Aaaaawwwww"s and such. ...

Cops Can Be Real Dicks When They Wanna Be

See, I mostly have a very prominent dislike for cops. Not because I'm a criminal, but because it seems like it is a cops job to treat you like a criminal at all times. To me, the sight of a cop should make me (someone who doesn't ever commit crimes) feel safe. How did you feel the last time you saw a cop? Chances are you got a...

Point Proven

It's no secret I don't have a ton of confidence in my ability to actually achieve things by myself, but I'm usually determined enough to successfully finish anything that I happen to start. This weekend I set forth to tackle my first car repair (besides brakes) entirely on my own, because I didn't want to bother anyone else with my incessant...