It's So Quiet In Here....

Wow, it has been close to four months since I last logged in and wrote anything...

It's been a really long year so far.

Lot's of changes are coming to the Destructo household, some good, some bad. In January I was reminded that Life does not always go exactly as you think it will, and all you can do is pick up the pieces and write a new story with what you have learned. 

I will return to mashing keys and blasting my thoughts out into the Internet, but the subject matter may change just a little bit. I have missed sitting here and spilling my brain onto the interwebz, yet every time I have sat down at the computer to write, I ended up not knowing where to start.

So in the coming weeks I will be cleaning out the blog and dusting off the cobwebs, hopefully some of you are still around to read what leaks out of my brain pan.

A Day In The Life (Comic)

Ode To Parenthood

Oh pee soaked sheets, oh smelly feet! Why doth kids be so picky when they eat?

My children run in the street, there are footprints on my toilet seat.

The TV is full of fingerprints, the dog is covered in something that smells like mint.

In public my child announces toots, I found Duplo blocks in my boots.

I get no privacy in the bathroom stall, my toddler writes on his bedroom wall.

You clean a room, then it gets wrecked. Methinks my blood pressure must be checked.

There is great joy in collecting ants, my kid just took off his underpants.

My boys like telling me whats hot, my daughter sometimes sleeps with rocks.

We eat lunch, then ask whats for dinner, in the league of whining, my kids are winners.

I really wish you didn't want to talk, while mommy and daddy's door is locked.

Putting band-aids on pretend owies, sometimes I dream of days in Maui.

Stubbing toes and bonking heads, please kid, sleep all night in your own bed.

While all of the above is pretty much true, don't worry, we will always love you.

Swiper, No Swiping!

As I sit here typing, I can hear the melodious lines from Dora the Explorer floating in from the next room...

If only it was as entertaining as this:

Even though my oldest is 5 going on 6, she still likes this show, and the boys will watch it when the mood strikes. That being said, you can only hear the Backpack Song about 15,814 times before you start dreaming about introducing Backpack to the wood chipper. 

He's always got he munchies

And don't even get me started on that Map guy, I'm pretty sure he buys his info from Latin drug cartels, and plays both sides of the espionage game. It is only a matter of time before his double agent ways put him on the wrong end of a crisscross cut paper shredder.

We know who you are, but who do you work for?

I'm pretty sure Swiper works for the TSA, he is not very good at keeping himself out of sight when planning a heist, and that mask kind of gives his intentions away, kind of like the airport blue shirts that pull you aside for a "random" security check. 

Not exactly Oceans 11 material

"Sir, if you would stand behind this curtain, and then disrobe, we are doing a random invasive security sweep and you got selected".

"We have called in Special Agent Swiper for this task, since he is always wearing his nitrile gloves. Please stand still..."

Oh boy...

Currently, Dora and Co are busy helping Blue Train rebuild his missing train tracks. I had no idea that Dora already completed her studies in railway engineering. 

I feel like I should be designing ships for space flight if she is this good at 6 years old.

 

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I can't wait until we get back to watching Spiderman and his AMAZING Friends! 

While the characters lines may be stilted and corny, at least I don't have to hear Iceman ask questions such as this:

 "Where is Dr. Doom? Do you see him?"

"Kingpin is trying to become a hostile dictator? Saaaay Kingpin! No world domination!"

I don't despise Dora, but sometimes even my oldest asks why they wait so long to talk after asking a question. And while she is figuring out how to get to Big Mountain, our youngest is yelling "BLUE!" as the answer to every question.

Yes Spiderman,

He is.

And he is hiding behind the big tree.

Invasion Of The Bed Snatchers

With all three of our children, my wife and I decided that we would do our level best to move each child out of our bedroom, and into their own as they got old enough to sleep out of arms reach. Having heard stories from other parents about their kids sleeping the master bedroom (or even sleeping in the parents bed) until they entered kindergarten or beyond, we wanted to stop that train before it left the station.

All of our kids did great transitioning to sleeping in their own bedroom, only sleeping with us when they felt sick, or had a case of scary dreams. We have have a great bit of luck with this, our kids have not spent any significant amount of time sleeping on our room over the last couple years, and I think that we are happier for it.

Fast forward to the last couple weeks

It started when a stomach bug was working its way through the house. One by one we all fell sick, with the kids getting hit in order of oldest to youngest. Mikayla slept in her room, she had the motivation to try and make it to the bathroom if she felt the need to vomit, and she was armed with large bowl beside the bed, just in case. 

The boys were a different story. Keith has yet to learn the fine art of running while feeling the need to return his lunch, and Joey is just too young to try. So as each fell to the oncoming epidemic, they slept in our room so that we could keep a close eye on them. The stomach bug has since passed, everyone is more or less healthy, and the boys got returned to the bedrooms from which they came. 

Except, for the last week, they have felt the need to invade our bed in the wee hours of the morning. First it was just one of them, then they took turns, some nights they both have tried sleeping with us. At first it was not a big deal, as they laid down and fell asleep, I picked them up and put them back in their own beds. But these last couple nights, when the door opens and a child peeks in, we have been refusing entry. This has been met with mild annoyance, then a retreat to the bedroom, or a 3am tantrum. But we will not give in, the wife and I have sort of gotten used to sleeping without being punched in the face or kicked in the kidney. 

A conversation I wish my kids understood.

"Here is the deal kiddo: The big bed belongs to your mother and I. Sometimes you are allowed to sleep over, but that is invite only".

The Big Bed

I think I need a bed like Shaq's

"You sleep in the small bed, in your very own room". 

The Small Bed

If only the bed ever stayed this neat

"So lets make a deal. You promise to not jump into my bed at 2am, and I promise not to jump into your bed at 2am"

But until the day comes when my boys can fully grasp the meaning of my words, we will continue to march them back across the hall, and into the proper bed. Hopefully they will soon realize that resistance is futile, and return to the kid bed for good.

Take A Look At What I Found

A few weeks ago, I stumbled upon a Facebook group that is dedicated to Dad bloggers. I am not on Facebook all that much anymore, but I have found many other blogs and bloggers to connect with.

One of the blogs I found is called DaddyPlace, this is a great blog run by a father of three, and it is geared towards dads that want to connect with other dads to share ideas and experiences. Here you will find articles and information about parenting in general, being a dad, parenting as a single dad, or info into the life of a stay at home dad. The site is also a great resource for those looking for help or support in the arena of being a Dad, and we can all use a place to vent and ask questions every now and again.

Another great little feature of this site is the forum. Now, I have been a member of a few dad forums, and most of them have died out, or have so few members that nothing new is ever posted. The forum at DaddyPlace has discussions posted on a pretty regular basis, and if you create a thread there, you will not wait weeks or months for a reply.

If you have a few extra moments, why not head over here and check the forum out.

Hope to see you there.



In the first publishing of this post, the owner of the site daddyplace.com was incorrectly described. Before I typed this post up, I was dabbling in the draft of another post regarding another blog, and I put the wrong info in the wrong post. Mea Culpa's have been sent, the error corrected, and now I know why I could never be a journalist.  

Sometimes I Hate The Internet.

Just today, I saw a retweet on my twitter feed, and the subject matter disgusted me thoroughly.

Someone had posted the user name of a twitter user, and asked that people take part in reporting the user to the powers that be at twitter.

Now, the tweet did not give any information as to why this account needed to be reported, so I clicked on the user name to see what required my immediate attention and participation, not expecting it to be anything remotely important...

 I will admit that I was shocked, when right on this users profile page, he/she/it had openly posted child pornography. Once the shock had worn off a bit, I also saw that this user had nearly 200 followers! Nearly 200 people were following an account that was set up for the sole purpose of exploiting children. That was all I needed to know, and backed out of that page just as soon as I finished copying the account URL so that I could report it to the authorities. Reporting things like this to twitter is great, but reporting it to a cyber crimes task force in addition to twitter is even better.

I am not naive, I know that the Internet has dark corners where things like this are stored and shared, but one assumes that the people responsible for distributing it prefer to hide in the shadows, away from prying eyes and the cyber arm of the law. But this account was not protected, not in any way kept a secret from the general population.

Thankfully, there are a few unwritten rules on the Internet and one of them is not harming or exploiting children. As a whole, that which "is" the Internet has no love or compassion for those that would harm a child,  and the account was reported to twitter and the authorities in short order. Hopefully, those responsible for these accounts will be found and hauled off for some alone time in a dark, cold holding cell.

As a parent, it breaks your heart to see things like this, and if you ever run across this yourself, please report the site, account, person, or place to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, your local police force, the FBI, or your countries child exploitation task force.