Where do babies come from?

This is the first in a series of posts aimed at educating my readers. I know that drivel you were taught in health class, it was all a pack of lies. I can tell you with confidence that there are many things that make babies magically appear from the sky. These include:

1. Purchasing more Christmas stocking hangers than there are people living in your house.

We bought these when Aliyah was staying with us, but then she moved on campus. That makes this one her fault.

2. Having a car whose seating capacity is larger than your family.

3. Having an unused guest bedroom in your house.

This one is also Aliyah’s fault. Note that the color of the room is pink, guaranteeing that the child will be another boy.

4. Having a blog whose tagline starts with “Life with three boys…”

5. Being on someone’s blogroll who calls your blog “Ben and his THREE Brothers.”

6. Naming your blog “My Three Sons.”

This is what I almost called my blog, but I’m nowhere near Fred McMurray’s height.

7. Putting off the vasectomy.

Okay, so maybe this is the real reason

In other news, Jared quits Subway for Pizza Hut

Jonathan’s preschool spent a week talking about eating healthy things. To kick things off they went to Pizza Hut on Monday for a field trip. Pizza Hut. When I think about healthy eating Pizza Hut is the first thing that comes to mind, right after McDonald’s and Taco Bell. Isaac had this same preschool teacher so I know this Pizza Hut trip is one of her favorites.

Quick question: what time would you schedule a field trip to Pizza Hut for a bunch of 4-5 year olds? That’s right, 9:00am. The kids just had breakfast and they’re full of energy, and they’re asked to come in and sit still at booths and tables. In the meantime the parents hope they don’t start pulling the light fixtures from the ceiling.

So we all pile into this tiny little dining room in a restaurant that is really designed for delivery. We’re waiting and the kids are starting to act up a bit when I notice the teachers huddled in a circle talking in hushed voices. Then they start counting kids and adults. They’re seeing about fire codes and all that. I hear one teacher report 31 kids (including siblings) and another report 34 adults (including six teachers). Maximum occupancy for the restaurant? 54.

Four teachers head back to the school. I start thinking “I am so blogging this.” Apparently they didn’t have to send any of the students home. They take the kids back to show them how they make the dough, and the different stages it goes through. I was impressed at the size of their stand mixer. Then they let the kids make their own pizzas.

What I meant to say was the pizzas already had sauce and cheese on them, and the kids could put more cheese and / or pepperoni on them. And when you ask a 5 year old to put pepperoni on a pizza you get lots and lots of pepperoni. Much more pepperoni than any pizza should have. In the end, the kids picked most of it off.

The kids ended up having a good time. Of course they did, they got to eat pizza at 10:00am. I can’t wait for the next great field trip idea: tooth care week at the chocolate factory.

American Idol Viewer’s Guide

American Idol returns tonight, isn’t that great?  Since I have no self respect any more I can proudly say that I watched every episode last year (yes I voted for Jordin).  You have to wonder what poor soul will be chosen as a finalist, only to serve as Simon Cowell’s personal punching bag until they are mercifully eliminated.  Has anyone ever asked if these contestants get paid for making Fox all that money?  Just asking.

Anyway, as I said I have one full year of American Idol watching experience.  A harrowing experience it was, too.  And since I don’t learn from my mistakes I’ll probably watch every show this season as well.  But I did learn some things along the way, and since I’m a nice guy I thought I’d pass them on to the world at large.

Mark’s Guide to Watching American Idol

1. Don’t watch it live!  Tivo, DVR, whatever you call it, USE IT.   There are so many ads during the show that you shouldn’t have to subject yourself to the myriad commercial breaks as well.  Wait until about a third of the way through, then start watching the recording.  As soon as you see the number to call pop up on the screen and hear Ryan Seacrest say “To vote for…” click fast forward.  You’ll finish on time, I promise.

2. Keep the mute button close!  Press the mute button any time Seacrest and Cowell start talking to each other.  Watching those two trade bad insults is more painful than Shrek the Third.  Those two need to get a room.  Seriously.

3. Don’t watch the elimination show!  Every week Fox takes an hour to tell someone that their dream is dead.  This hour is pretty much a complete waste of your time, but then so is this blog.  Last year we’d fast forward through the whole show and just watch to see who got sent home that week.  This year we’ll probably just skip that show altogether and look at Fox’s website after 9:00.  That way you don’t have to endure all the contrived suspense music and lighting as they make the announcement.

4. Visit votefortheworst.com!  For those of you wondering why Sanjaya stayed so long last year, it was probably these guys.   As the name implies, this website’s aim is coordinated mass voting for the worst singer still in competition.  They pick their pony and ride them until they’re eliminated.

5. Mention American Idol in your blog as often as possible!  Maybe your hit count will triple.  Hello syndication!  Hey, I can dream, can’t I?

Do buffaloes have wings?

The local grocery store sold Karen a rancid chicken on Saturday. It was a seven pounder destined for the table of a family in our church, so while Karen set about making the other preparations I returned the offending bird and got a replacement chicken:

Did you catch it? Look at the picture again. Yes, friends, that’s not a chicken. It was right next to the Purdue broilers, but that is most definitely a breast of turkey. Karen said “That’s not a chicken!” To this I replied “What?! Of course it’s a chicken!” After cursing I went back a second time and got a real chicken. It probably would have been easier to raise my own at this point. I suppose this raises the question of how I can cook a chicken if I don’t know what one looks like.

Suddenly I have something in common with Jessica Simpson…

A little reward, you’ve earned it…

This is my 100th post. I always knew I was this long-winded, but I didn’t know you had it in you to stick around this long. Thank you. For your diligence I reward you with a story that is now legend in our household lore.

The Burgers

It was October 2006 and raining and really too cold outside for grilling, but we’d made burgers for the grill. Karen’s mom was visiting so I wanted to “treat” her to my hamburgers. Well, we have an indoor grill, and let’s face it, cooking with a gas grill isn’t real BBQ anyway.

For those of you unfamiliar with our kitchen we had a Jenn-Air range that was about as old as I am. And Jenn-Air ranges come with an indoor grill insert and, well, let me show you what it looks like:

So your food sits on the grill grates (on the right), under that is the heating element, and under that is where those knobbly looking things go. They’re heavy and they have wire supports for the heating element. Apparently they do a good job of collecting grease too, but we’ll get to that. We’ve cooked steaks on the grill before with moderate success. It’s actually not a bad idea for when it’s raining. But we’d never cooked burgers on the grill before, and I figured it would be just like steaks. Oh, and another thing, this time I left the heat turned all the way up to high. And why not? Charcoal grills have no real heat control anyway, right? I’m not really sure what the instructions say to do in this instance, but real men don’t need instructions, right?

So I’m cooking burgers. I’m the man, I cook the burgers. They’re about three quarters done and I see this tiny flame peek out from underneath the heating element. Hmm. A little bit of grease, it should burn itself out soon, I think. It doesn’t. It starts growing. Apparently burgers have a lot of fat in them, but then I already knew that. I turn the heat off. The flame (at this point I should say flames) keep getting bigger, until they are reaching up and licking the bottom of the microwave.

“help” I say very sheepishly. From the dining room I hear Karen say “What now?”

“f- f- fire” I say sheepishly. Everyone comes in. Karen, Karen’s mom, Karen’s sister. At this point I’m thinking two things: Where are the boys? Ben is asleep in his swing, Isaac is asleep in bed, Jonny is in the bathtub. The other thing I’m thinking is Who the f— puts wallpaper behind a stove? Seriously, shouldn’t there be tile back there? The previous owners of this house did nothing right.

Wait, the stove is still on fire. I’m wishing at this point that we had a fire extinguisher. Karen put a pot lid on the grill, but the fire is under the grill so that doesn’t work. We don’t have enough baking soda. So we all wonder what to do. How much time until the wallpaper catches fire? I make an executive decision. Everything has to go. I grab my kitchen tongs and, starting from the top down, I take each piece individually outside to the back porch.

“WAIT!” says Karen, “Save the burgers!” I can see the headline now: Woman Rescues Burgers, Serves Them To Firemen While Her House Burns Down. Once the burgers are safe I take everything else outside in the cold and rain.

The burgers weren’t very good, but now we have a fire extinguisher in the kitchen.

Later that week the same exact thing happened to Bobby Flay on Iron Chef America. That’s why I like him so much. He’s so much like me. He put the fire out by emptying a box of kosher salt on it. Good to know.

A Momentary Lapse of Reason

I yell a lot. Just ask my kids. Heck, ask my wife and she’ll tell you that all too often I let the kids get to me and I raise my voice. I hate it. I’ve tried taking a deep breath and reacting calmly when they ignore me, but it’s much easier to just yell.

Take, for instance, video games. I have a seven-year-old and a four-year-old who both love video games. But these games are expensive so I tell them not to leave them on the floor to get broken. I have to tell them every day and they still do it. Jonathan especially like stepping on things. So this bothers me when I see it:

A game controller on the floor. And this really bothers me:

See? Not only are they on the floor, but there’s a disc missing. Where’d it go? Don’t you realize how expensive these games are? Of course not, you just ask for stuff and it magically appears, doesn’t it?

You get the idea. We need to take care of things. So when we decided to get a video game for our nephews for Christmas I wanted to make sure it arrived at there house in pristine condition. Except this game isn’t available new any more so I had to buy it used. I saw lots of scratches on the surface of this disc and, although it worked perfectly, decided to “clean it up” a bit. So I reached for my trusty bottle of acetone.

Let’s call this my second Public Service Announcement. Acetone destroys discs. I’ll assume this happens with CD’s and DVD’s too, but I haven’t tried that yet. If any one is willing to make a donation I’ll be glad to try it out on a Shrek the Third DVD.

Murder!

I killed Karen’s computer. Well, technically it was my computer, but in our house Karen gets all the cool electronics and I get what’s left over. Karen confiscated my laptop when our other computer started doing this:

This is what I stare at every day. I have no idea what my blog really looks like. It took me several months to be able to look at the screen without getting a headache. Karen still can’t do it. My in-laws have visited and they steer clear of this thing. I’m sure they all get together and laugh at me for having such a suck computer. And seeing that picture on this monitor makes is look worse.

Anyway, looking at my laptop is like taking a step back in time. Perhaps the same year I bought it several technologies went obsolete. The parallel port:

The serial port:

The floppy drive:

The hard drive on this laptop started giving problems back in the spring. If you let it shut down all the way it wouldn’t always start back up. But once it got going it was fine. Monday it quit for good. I often had visions of someone breaking into our house and stealing it, only to get it to the pawn shop DOA. It still makes me laugh. There is a sense of security in knowing that there’s nothing in your house worth stealing.

What I really want is an iMac. I grew up in the days of the Apple II, and I’ve always wanted to go back. But the real reason I want a Mac is that their commercials are way cool. I think I look like the “I’m a Mac” guy. I’ll be posting more praise for OS X later, in the hopes that Apple will give me one for free because of all the publicity I’m giving them.

Dear Commissioner Goodell,

I would like to watch a football game without seeing 8 commercials for ED medicines. Please make them stop.

Thank you.

15 Weird things in the Wal-Mart dairy section

Daddyforever had this great meme, called “15 weird things about me.” It quickly turned from “weird things” to “his wife will stab him 15 times with a kitchen knife for this.” Hopefully the wounds won’t be fatal and the police won’t find his body washed ashore on the Pacific coast somewhere.

So instead of airing my laundry I decided to stay on the Wal-Mart theme I started on Friday. When you’re shopping you kind of have blinders on, and if something’s not on your list you don’t really see it. Well I didn’t have that luxury while stocking the shelves, and let me tell you the dairy section has some of the nastiest products in the store. So here they are, in ascending order of nasty, fifteen weird things in the dairy section of Wal-Mart.

Before you ask, yes, the refrigerated juices count as the dairy section. Don’t ask me, I’m a mindless drone. Start the countdown!

15. Goat’s milk - Not really weird, but we never had it in stock. The day before I left we got a shipment of one carton. A customer was very happy that day.

14. Pineapple Orange Banana juice

13. Frigo Cheese heads mozzarella/cheddar swirled cheese sticks

12. Soy chocolate milk

And now, something from the yogurt wall…
(that’s right, it’s the wall where the yogurt is.)

11. Thick & Creamy Light key lime pie flavored yogurt - “Thick & Creamy” and “Light” don’t go together.

10. Boston Cream Pie flavored yogurt

9. Pina Colada flavored yogurt

8. Vanilla yogurt with mini Reese’s Pieces to stir in it

7. Coffee flavored yogurt

6. Flan - This isn’t really weird, it’s just not something I’d buy from a box at Wal-Mart.

5. Gallons of Great Valu orange juice - didn’t resemble juice at all, so naturally we couldn’t stock it fast enough.

4. Yoohoo! - does anybody really know what’s in that stuff?

3. Soy yogurt

2. Cottage cheese with pineapple jam for you to mix in with it

1. Salmon flavored cream cheese

There was also an extensive selection of items in the pre-made dough section, but that’s another post.

Mark ruins August

Benchmarks are always good. It’s good to know “Ick, I ruined dinner, but it wasn’t as bad as last week’s Jerk chicken.” or “This pizza isn’t very good but it’s not the shape of Wisconsin.” Our family (and by that I mean Mark) has a new benchmark for success, or more specifically, failure.

In life we all make mistakes. We all make bad decisions, errors in judgment. And in these mistakes there are varying degrees of disaster associated with them. And in our house we now know that there are bad ideas, horrible ideas, and then there’s Wal-Mart.

It seemed like a good idea at the time. If I’m still home to watch the boys during the day I can work two or three nights a week third shift, right? Right? Perhaps not. Had I been working just weekends I still would have failed, but it certainly didn’t help that I was on four nights a week - in a row. By the morning following night #4, the boys were on their own, playing video games all day in their pajamas and eating candy for lunch. And it would take three days off for me to start feeling normal again. Well, as normal as I can be.

I’d been working nights for two weeks when I gave my notice. I told them I’d work the existing schedule and then be done. Problem was, there was three weeks of schedule already done, and two of them were jammed together - four days on, one day off, four days on. Ugh.

It’s amazing just how neurotic you become with sleep deprivation. Do you know how confusing it is to start your shift on Monday and finish it Tuesday? Halfway through the night today turns into yesterday and tomorrow turns into today. And somewhere along the line (I’m not sure the exact time) tonight turns into this morning. People start talking about “tonight” and they really mean “tomorrow.” Then I get to go home and sleep all day watch the kids. Is it any wonder that my love affair with coffee became an addiction? After working those eight nights during a nine day period I actually said to the boys “If you don’t eat your dinner tonight I’m selling the Wii on ebay!”

I once had a college professor who told me “You can’t fail if you never try.” This is something you never want to hear from a college professor. He was trying to make me feel better, knowing that at least I’d had the courage to pluck up and do something stupid. And I suppose it’s true. Adding something to the list of my stupid ideas is better than sitting around wondering what would’ve happened if I’d tried this or that. And boy, I set my sights really high on this one, didn’t I?

Oh, and a guy made a pass at me while working the cheese wall at 2:00am on a Saturday night. Or was it a Sunday morning?