Flame Retardant Pajamas

40 pounds of sausage in a casing designed for 30 pounds. Yep, that's pretty much what Owen looks like in 4T pajamas. I really have no idea why kid's pajamas are all flame retardant, I'm sure there's one kid somewhere that would have been saved if they hadn't been wearing loose fitting jammies. Seems to me that ALL clothing for my boy should be flame retardant since he's far more likely to be close to our oven and the fireplace than making a flambe in his room. I don't think he's overweight. Sure, he's built like a 3rd round fullback, but he's definitely not a 1st round left tackle. Based on my informal survey of pot-bellies on 3 yr olds at the playground and in Owen's swim class, I'd say he's about average to above average pot-bellied. It's when I watch him running over people with those big thighs, my God a pre-schooler, that I can tell where all the meat is stored. His legs are massive, just like his Daddy. I would never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever say just like his Mommy.

The tops to flame retardant pjs are fine on him, but the bottoms are always really tight. Out of curiosity, I googled flame retardant pajamas and discovered there is a huge controversy. I knew there was some question as to whether the chemicals used to make them flame retardant were safe, but like everything else related to kids, it's evil and bad and they're going to kill our kids. I cruised through a couple of "Why Flame Retardant Pajamas Are Bad" pages and the crux of the argument seems to be that you don't know what chemicals and in what concentrations. My favorite post was from a Mom of two kids named Birch and Willow. I'll let you guess whether or not she switched from chemically jammies to organic untreated cotton. Her post was actually way better than the "CHEMICALS ARE EVIL!!!!" information most people put up.

Basically, in the 1970s, the Consumer Product Safety Commission decided that kids pajamas needed to be exposed to an open flame for 3 seconds. So various chemicals were used and had to be effective enough to still prevent lil' Junior from roasting after 50 runs through the laundry. Of course, some of these compounds were linked to genetic problems, damage to the nervous and reproductive systems, and possible carcinogens. I decided to google a second search phrase. "Why the hell do kid's pajamas have to be flame retardant?" Nothing of note. If you know why, I would be really curious to find out why in the world pajamas need to be flame-resistant.

In the meantime, I'm not going to worry about it too much. I probably looked like an over-stuffed sausage in the late 1970s and early 80s at bed time too, and I am clearly a genius, handsome, and very good at reproducing. Besides, organic cotton jammies are like $30 and have prints like free-range stallions, trees, and sea turtles being born and making the arduous trek back to the sea. For $10, I can get him spaceship, Star Wars, or Batman pjs. A more effective way to avoid the boy igniting himself is to take away the book of matches and flammable super glue I'm using to encourage construction of a mini-log cabin.

CK

PSA: "The Day The Dinosaurs Died"

WARNING: Do not buy, checkout of the local library, or even open the book "The Day The Dinosaurs Died". Wow, is this book terrible for kids. I started to read it to Owen for bedtime last night and it starts with a T-rex running off smaller dinosaurs to steal the dead dinosaur they were eating on. While Mr. Rex is snacking, an asteroid is getting closer, but he eats his meal without noticing. When he looks up, it's too late.

Then, we turn to the next page and Pteranodons are blown out of the sky by the explosion, rocks boil away, everything is killed instantly. A few pages later, we meet the Triceratops grazing peacefully a few thousand miles away. Sure, the flash of light is scary, but they go back to eating. But they're not safe because there is a wall of fire is closing in around them. But they're not going to be killed by fire because there is a tsunami that's going to put out the fire and drown them all.

Some dinosaurs are lucky enough to survive the instant death by asteroid, fireballs, and tsunamis. Yay, dinosaurs live through the disaster to reproduce and repopulate the Earth? Nope, those ones are going to starve to death because they can;t find food while picking through the ashes.

When the survivors finally starve to death, at least you get to be a fossil in a museum. Again, wishful thinking, how about you get to be rodent food? And the illustrations of the rodents are not friendly, they're frightening. I made the mistake of starting to read this book at bedtime. Very quickly, I was changing sentences from 'Tyrannosaurus Rex died instantly' to 'T-Rex had a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day.' The Triceratops were not painfully slaughtered in a fire/tsunami, they were 'punished for not listening to their Daddies.' Then I gave up and just started flipping pages as quickly as possible. When the evil rats show up to eat the dinosaur that just starved to death, Owen stopped me and announced, "Look at the baby mice!" Yeah, baby mice that are going to help that dinosaur...

We immediately removed that book from the room and it went back to the library immediately. Even before I could scan in some of the pages for this post. I made it up to him by reading a book about people getting free dinosaurs with the purchase of a dozen doughnuts. Talk about a win-win. Daddy gets doughnuts and Owen gets a LIVE pet dinosaur according to that book. Most importantly, Daddy doesn't get up at 2 AM to console a boy crying about the horrible deaths 65 million years ago.

CK

The Gloriousness of One Year

Typically, I focus on the screwball antics of a 3 and a half year old and the wake of destruction he leaves behind. But this post is going to focus on the mini girl version of me. Now that she's 1, she's making leaps and bounds in her motor skills, mobility, and (most importantly) convenience for me.

I have always had trouble with feeding times and keeping her focused with the boy running around. And when Mommy is present, she's got the head on a swivel trying to keep track of her instead of focusing on the fatty caloric goodness on a baby spoon I'm trying to shovel in. Now that her fine motor skills have improved to the point she can grasp peas and other small food items, I just put a smorgasbord of things on her tray to let her decide what she eats and what goes to the dogs. Lily does pretty well with the arrangement and the dogs make out like bandits.

I'm also pretty thrilled that she's starting to grasp the concept of clothing. Rather than fighting to get her into all the cute pink outfits, she's starting to help by pushing her arms straight out. She still wants to get down as soon as possible and get away from Daddy, but it's a lot easier. I'm also thrilled that getting her arms out of the NASA astronaut level safety harness has suddenly gotten a lot better. Normally, she just screams and flails while I struggle to squeeze crazy baby arms out of those tight quarters. It's next to impossible. Suddenly, she gets it and folds those lil' chubby arms up to pull them out herself. It's much easier and those 20 seconds allow me to get to Owen faster. Hint: if you have two children, always get the immobile one out of the car first, then go for the mobile one so it's not running across the parking lot/traffic. Same getting back into the car, corral the more exuberant one first. He is usually upset about something, so getting him subdued faster is always more gooder.

It is kind of nice having her crawling around and entertaining herself more. Sure, I have to be on top of things to ensure that the downstairs gates/bathroom door/front door/back porch door/basement door/upstairs gates/dog water/dog food in bowls are all secured. Not to mention having to make sure the potty in Owen's room is ALWAYS empty just in case she gets over there. She spends tons of time crawling around and throwing toys, figuring things out, and practicing standing up. Instead of having to move her from exer-saucer to bouncer to random spot on the floor, she's much happier for longer periods of time. Another downside is that I do have to spend some time playing referee. Often putting Owen in timeout because he just ripped one of Lily's toys out of her hand. Maybe that's not a downside. Maybe he'll be the best little sharer and listener in the whole pre-school in the fall. Probably not.

One of the best parts of turning 1 is her personality really exploding. I spent some time this afternoon flinging a giggling kid around (gently) and tickling baby ribs. So danged cute with the smile and her little teeth sticking out, dimples, and the grunting chuckle. Just awesome. I had to work for the littlest grin forever and now she's happy as can be. Wait, I just realized she has figured out how to manipulate me. She's been doing it all along! Her brother always ends up in timeout, I dance like her pet monkey for minor approval, and she gets whatever she wants. How did I just get an email confirmation that I bought a pony?

CK

Bob the Builder

Forget Thomas. Forget Fireman Sam. Forget Super Why and all the other shows on the planet. Bob the Builder is the new sheriff in town. It's got everything that a 3 year old needs. Construction equipment, animated characters, annoying voices that drive Mommy and Daddy up the wall, and ridiculous story lines. You can tell when Owen loves something because we are not allowed to enjoy it with him. As he's singing the wonderful Bob the Builder theme song, we cannot even think about bobbing our head and yelling "Yes we can!" to Bob's question "Can we fix it?" If either of us dare get involved with the theme song, he will turn, stomp, and scream at the top of his lungs "NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YOU CAN'T DO THAT!!!!!!!"

I don't see why Bob is any different from the average kids show. One of Bob's machines steps out of line by doing a job too early, their own way, or by destroying something through carelessness. Pretty much exactly what Thomas the Tank Engine does. Or Chuggington. Or Norman Price in the Fireman Sam series. Bob should send the offending piece of equipment to the scrap heap and buy a better model. But no, he laughs it off and spends his client's dollars and time to fix it. Probably with a big change order.

I suppose that even a kids show needs a little drama to make things more interesting. Everyone wants to see a crash. Especially when it's a big cloud of dust and a bunch of cartoon limbs strewn around. At least that would be more entertaining to Daddy until it's 2 AM and there's a 3 yr old boy having nightmares. The lack of serious consequences is good for the little ones and their imaginations. But, I'm sure that's the main reason my boy has never had a cautious moment. He sees Scratch the Excavator get crushed under tons of rock without a...well...scratch. His scraped knees can't possibly be caused by the gigantic feet and clumsiness I blessed him with.

I think I'm going to start my own kid's series. Maybe a giant purple dinosaur that does nothing but hug people and provide good lessons. I think everyone would enjoy that, and my boy would stop face planting on concrete.

CK

Snow Day

Owen has been talking about snow for weeks. It's been a bizarrely warm winter so far, but it has been very funny to watch him run around outside in 65 degree sunny weather while yelling about how much it's going to snow later. Well, they were actually calling for snow this past Sunday night. He called it by announcing it was going to snow. I guess if you say it's going to snow everyday, you might actually be right occasionally. We used the potential for snow to get him into bed, sort of like we do with Santa Claus. "Santa Claus/Snow can't come if your not in bed and fast asleep." Like Christmas, it didn't really work.

Technically, we didn't get snow. We got some sleet that accumulated on the shaded areas and froze over night. I would say we got somewhere between 1/32nd of an inch and 1/16th of an inch. As soon as the sun came up, everything in the front yard was gone, but the stuff on our back porch stayed shaded and cold until about 10 AM. When Owen remembered he called for snow, he looked out the back door on to the porch and we got an excited 15 minutes of yelling about "LOTS OF SNOW ON THE BACK PORCH AND WE NEED TO GO OUTSIDE AND PLAY IN THE SNOW AND CHECK THE ROOF AND HAVE FUN!!!!!!" Check the roof?

I tried to let him down gently. I tried to explain that it was only a little bit of snow. I explained that the front of our house was just like normal because the sun came up. He would have none of it. In his mind, I'm sure we had 6 feet on the other side of the house. If he understood basic units of measurement. After we got breakfast cleaned up and Lily in bed for a nap, it was time to go outside. I wish I had a better ending, like there really was a ton of snow out front, or he was excited about one or two small areas of sleet in the shade that were still there, or even a crying fit I could laugh at. Seems like he'd forgotten about the whole thing and didn't care that there wasn't anything out there. Like a true meteorologist, he was announcing that it would be snowing later on that day. Never let facts get in your way.

CK

Valentines Day

I know, last week. But we've never been real big on celebrating Valentines Day so I have been ignoring this post for busy reasons. Well, I guess we did celebrate the one Valentines in 2008 because Owen was born in November '08, but that was it. My big romantic plan this year was to do nothing except a card and a bag of chocolate like I usually do. Why do I need to spend a ton of $$$ on something when I should really be showing the wife love the other 365 days of the year? Then I saw the flyer for Sweetheart Night at the local Chick-fil-A on the 13th. Yes! Sign us up immediately.

We love Chick-fil-A, probably more so than the average family. Since the wife is allergic to gluten (wheat, malt, barely), she can't eat at very many restaurants. Even if the restaurant understands what gluten is, there's often cross contamination issues like preparing her food on a surface that just had bread crumbs on it or running their french fries through the same fryer they just did the breaded chicken nuggets. Chick-fil-A on the other hand, uses a dedicated fryer for their delicious waffle fries. We've never had a problem there. Throw in the interior playground and it's our favorite place to eat. Because we're classy like that.

I went to the website and made the reservation. Very fancy. There was zero information, so all I really knew is that we were supposed to show up at 6:15 Monday night. At this point, I told the wife that we had reservations the night before Valentines, but I would not be taking her as my date. I took the liberty of lining up a date for her, but I had a cute young lady in mind for myself. Of course we documented the wonderful evening, you can see us with our dates:

 

The wife is so funny. She had all sorts of questions, and I kept trying to tell her I didn't know anything except show up at 6:15. But she kept asking questions. I'm trying to be less sarcastic, but I had to poke a little fun at her.

Wife: "What should I wear?"
Me: "Well, I'm wearing a tuxedo and tails, so maybe you should go with a Versace gown?"

Wife: "Do you know what kind of food they're going to have?"
Me: "Definitely filet mignon. I heard they're changing their name to Cow-fil-A."

Note to self, don't be sarcastic to the the wife or you definitely won't have the opportunity to have a third kid in November 2012.

When we arrived, they had set a part of the restaurant aside, put up a maitre d stand, tablecloths with flowers and candles, and turned off half the fluorescent bulbs in the section for ambience. The menus were your standard Chick-fil-A fare only written in a fancy font. They took orders at the table and delivered food. I went with the spicy chicken sandwich, while my date opted for a tub of peas she brought from home. Nice, she's didn't go for the most expensive item, but it was a little weird to bring your own food.

The wife had the grilled chicken salad while her date enjoyed chicken nuggets. Literally, he enjoyed them by putting his face down in the plate they brought them on so as to keep his hands clean. They must have been delicious because they disappeared in a hurry and he asked nicely to be excused to play on the playground. By ask nicely, I mean he tried to crawl under the table and shove his lovely date out of the way while complaining loudly.

My date was a little grumpy since we weren't shoveling peas into her face as fast as possible. Once we were able to get some food into her, she did settle down and we had a wonderful conversation while the wife and her date spent some quality time on the playground. When the check arrived, my date offered to pick up the tab, but since I am a fancy gentleman, I refused her generous offer and covered everyone's meal. I figured the wife's date would try to dine and dash since he is usually dashing everywhere and he hasn't bothered to find a job or pay rent yet.

Can I get that Daddy, I'm not high maintenance. Yet.

On our way out, we were presented with gifts. The wife got a carnation, Daddy got a free chicken biscuit coupon. Owen and Lily each received gift bags with a cow beanie and a free chicken biscuit coupon. The carnation was instantly stolen by the wife's date and it was brandished throughout the restaurant and parking lot like a weapon. I'm pretty sure he was defending his date against all the other preschoolers that brought their Mommies. Of course, it didn't take long to snap the carnation stem so now it's in a much smaller glass on our table. But Daddy scored the biggest. Three free chicken biscuit coupons? Thank you very much. Not to mention February is buy one get one free chicken biscuits for Dads that bring kids in on Friday mornings. I got a free one last Friday, will get a free one this Friday, and still have 3 free ones over the next few weeks. Best. Valentines. Ever.

CK

Phantom Menace Running Diary

This is my running diary of thoughts when I watched The Phantom Menace the other day. This was before I decided not to take my boy, or even go see it myself in my small act of defiance. I recommend getting a good bottle of hard liquor and watching the movie. Pretend I'm in the room with my witty comments at the appropriate minute marks and do shots every time there is a really bad line of dialogue.

0:31 The trademark Star Wars logo with the opening brass lick and ensuing word crawl setting the movie up might be the best opening in movie history. Glad Lucas stuck with it across the franchise.

2:10 Big planet, lots of ships, great opening shot. Of course, we also have my first annoyance with the accents on the Trade Federation dudes.

3:15 Ewan MacGregor is a good young Obi-Wan.

3:59 The Trade Federation guys should really have been speaking in their “native” language with subtitles as much as possible.

5:45 Light sabers in the mist = awesome.

6:10 The Viceroy panicking because Jedi on the loose and his friend/assistant/whatever being matter of fact about how the Jedi have pretty much already killed them is well-played.

6:45 Light saber = best lock pick ever.

7:05 Shielded battle droids are nice, but I always wondered about the lack of technology decades after this movie in the original Star Wars. Shields on some droids, but the TIE Fighters at the Death Star don’t have shields or pressurized cabins?

10:57 Who has two thumbs and can single-handedly ruin a movie? Jar-Jar Binks. Wait, does he have thumbs?

12:10 It’s not only the way he talks, it’s also the way he moves that irks me.

15:47 There’s the Jedi mind trick.

16:30 No Liam Neeson, don’t take Jar-Jar with you, leave him to the fat Gungan to get rid of.

17:02 NNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

18:12 Giant evil fish = taking my kid for his first pee break. I would like to take him back to the ocean eventually and there’s no way he’s getting in the water if he thinks those things exist.

21:00 I love the city they have on Naboo, looks really cool.

24:45 I also love the huge amounts of droids being turned into spare parts. When in doubt, give me more light-sabering of baddies.

26:20 Of course R2-D2 saved everyone. He’s a rockstar. And why doesn’t Obi-Wan recognize him in A New Hope? I’d remember that droid.

29:10 “You’re a Gungan, aren’t you?” Wait, isn’t Natalie Portman’s character the Queen undercover as one of her hand maidens? Maybe know your planet if you’re the Queen. Do a shot if you can still see straight from Jar-Jar's screen time.

32:00 And here’s the second most annoying character in cinema history, young Anakin.

32:30 “Are you an angel?” And that’s why he’s second most annoying. A quick IMDB check and Jake Lloyd pretty much hasn’t worked since Phantom Menace. I hope he’s okay.

38:30 I don’t know how I feel about the 6 year old Darth Vader building C-3PO.

47:20 WOW, I completely forgot about George Lucas going the ‘Immaculate Conception’ route for Anakin Skywalker. W. O. W.

50:05 I demand a two-headed announcer for all sporting events. I’d watch ANYTHING if there was an Al Michaels head and a Cris Collinsworth head doing play by play and color. Maybe even a third Ron Jaworski head?

1:00:30 I think the best part of this movie is the pod-racing with the different engine sounds, the scenery, and Tusken raiders sitting on a hill side taking pot shots at the racers. It’s fantastic, really. Plus young Anakin and Jar-Jar don’t speak.

1:06:34 The extras in the stands and their half-hearted cheering when young Anakin takes the lead made me giggle.

1:06:45 George Lucas, that was a gratuitous Jawa shot with a random “Utinni!” thrown in. I will allow it.

1:09:40 More two-headed announcer creature! The use of Jabba in this movie was good too, napping at the end, being generally Jabba the Hutt-like throughout the pod-race.

1:16:25 Darth Maul is appropriately evil and bad-ass. I must be cautious about exposing my boy to him.

1:19:53 Throughout the second half of this movie, the sexual tension between young Anakin and Portman is awfully creepy. The only thing creepier is the sexual tension between Lightning McQueen and Sally in the Pixar movie Cars. I know Lucas is setting it up for the romance in the next few movies, but wait for Anakin to be older in the next movie.

1:24:33 Samuel L. Jackson as a Jedi.

1:27:10 The Senate Chambers are a nice feature and I’m glad to see bureaucrats bureaucratting it up and recommending a committee to explore a planetary invasion. Ian McDiarmid hits homeruns throughout the Star Wars franchise and I’m glad that Lucas was able to use him in Return of the Jedi and bring him back many years later as a younger Senator Palpatine. When I meet George Lucas in a bar I think I’ll high-five him about McDiarmid and the original 3 movies. It’d be about 3 hours and several shots later that we’d be having fisticuffs about some of his changes to my childhood and the aforementioned Jar-Jar.

1:33:10 Liam Neeson, you best listen to Samuel L. Jackson and Yoda. When I’m President, I’m hiring Frank Oz and somebody who can work a Yoda puppet to advise me on all matters. Samuel L. Jackson will be my Secretary of State. Mother-#$@%ing North Korea and mother-#$@%ing Iran will get in line in a mother-#$@%ing hurry.

1:37:47 I’m also hiring the Queen’s Security guy, Captain Panaka, for something. He’s a poor man’s Samuel L. Jackson.

1:39:50 I don’t mind all Gungans. I actually like them. Some of my best friends are Gungan. It’s just the one…

1:43:00 General Jar-Jar. General Jar-Jar. General Jar-Jar.

1:45:25 Dilemma time. How much of the battle between Gungans and the droid army do I let the kid watch? Can I send him out into the lobby by himself while I watch it in 3D?

1:47:50 Also high on my priority list during the early part of my Presidency, an executive order making George Lucas do nothing but make movies about fighters in space. And Steven Spielberg can only collaborate with Tom Hanks on WWII movies/mini-series.

1:50:24 Doors open and Darth Maul is standing in front of the full group. With the John Williams soundtrack, I got major goosebumps. Liam Neeson says, “We’ll handle this.” Nice.

1:52:15 Light saber fights, blaster fire, space battles. I’m in heaven.

1:53:33 Jar-Jar with a battle droid stuck to his foot. He’s stomping and the droid is firing into other battle droids. Ugh.

1:54:55 All the Naboo people ascending on the outside of the palace to storm the throne room. Great scene.

1:56:20 What’s with the shielding to stop the light saber fights? On the flip-side, Liam Neeson kneeling down and meditating while Darth Maul stalks around like a caged animal is a great way to handle that.

1:58:53 When I originally saw the movie, I hated the Anakin piloting a starfighter plot point. Now, I’m a fan. Okay, maybe not a fan. But it’s not as bad as I remembered.

2:01:55 The Obi-Wan-Darth Maul duel >>>>>>>>>>> Obi-Wan-Darth Vader duel in Episode IV. Getting old sucks.

2:03:34 Mental note: When President, do not invest in massive droid army controlled by one computer.

2:04:16 I’m fairly certain my boy 1. Will not patiently sit through a two hour movie and 2. Will have horrific nightmares about Darth Maul. Starting to think we’ll need to have a sensory depravation chamber I can shove him into for certain scenes.

2:06:26 More Yodaisms = More Gooder.

2:08:40 The Naboo celebration parade < Ewok Celebration.

2:09:39 One last sly wink between Portman and Young Anakin before the credits. *shiver*