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Tim Sandwich Artist: Hi, welcome to Subway.

[Never looks up, continues to fiddle with a bag of broccoli cheddar soup]

Randy: Duuuuude, baby, what it is, what it is?

Sandwich Artist: What kind of bread would you like?

Randy: Ehhhh, I don’t know dog. This is hard man, this is hard.

[Fiddles with the whiskers on his chin while looking intently at 6 loaves of bread]

Sandwich Artist: I’d go with the Honey Oat, it’s got oats on it.

Randy: Hawwwww man, I like it. You know what I like about it is that even though it’s a little yeasty at times, it’s still able to bring me back in with the oat. I like it man.

Sandwich Artist: What kind of sandwich can I make for you?

Randy: Yo dog, dog, you even have to ask? Chicken Bacon Ranch, baby! Love that ranch, dude, feelin’ it, ranch is where it’s at yo!

Sandwich Artist: Alright. Would you like cheese?

Randy: I’m going to say 100% yes!

Sandwich Artist: Toasted?

Randy: I’m going to say 1000% yes!

[Guy slides the sandwich on to the tray for the toaster. Both awkwardly await for the toasting to commence]

Sandwich Artist: Would you like any vegetables on here?

Randy: Duuuude, dawwwwwg, duuuuuuude, no.

Sandwich Artist: What about the ranch?

Randy: Six-hundred-million-thousand-hundred percent yes!

[A small amount of ranch is applied]

Randy: Duuude, it’s just like it doesn’t have enough UUUUGGGGGHHHHH! Come on man, UUUUGGGGGHHHHH!

[Ranch completely covers every available inch of the sandwich]

Randy: Dawg, dawg, dawg! That’s what I’m talkin bout! I felt that, I felt that.

[Thumps chest with fist, repeatedly]

Sandwich Artist: Would you like to make this a combo today?

Randy: No. Sorry duuuude. Today’s not your day man.

Sandwich Artist: Okay then, that will be $6.18.

[Pays with diamond from his watch face]

Sandwich Artist: Thank you, have a good day.

Randy: Once you got started you had it goin’ on! I was like WHAAAAAAT! Just really classy man, you made it your own. Awesome. Awesome.

[Randy walks out. Sandwich artist goes back to fiddling with the bag of soup]

“Oh, he’s calm. . .calm like a bomb” 

While my marriage may be a democracy, my relationship with my son is much closer to what I like to refer to as a “benign dictatorship.” As any good dictator knows, it’s important to suppress the will of the proletariat to prevent an uprising. In this, the first of my 37 part series, I will discuss three important ideological rules of any benign dictatorship:

Rule #1: Control the Supply of Goods and Services: A strong dictator will create demand for a particular good or service and then suppress the supply of said good or service to manipulate the behavior of the proletariat.

When my son first transitioned to a toddler bed, he quite literally got up 113 times before we finally got him to fall asleep. Fortunately, I am a shrewd dictator who studied economics and understands the power of creating unnecessary demand and then increasing the price by suppressing supply.

First, I went to the store and purchased a series of safe plastic toys, including a car, an airplane, and an elephant. Each night thereafter, these bedtime toys have been introduced to Dominic five to ten minutes before it’s time to get under the covers. He is allowed to play with them in bed while we read him poems and say his prayers. However, each time he gets out of bed for more than a three count, he loses a toy, thus suppressing the supply of bedtime toys and subsequently increasing the price of getting out of bed.

I suggest starting with five or six toys the first night to give yourself some additional leverage until your child learns the rules. It may sound a bit cruel, but remember that he gets to keep all of the cool new toys if he simply stays in bed.

Q: But what if he keeps taunting me by getting out of bed for two seconds at a time?

A: No problem. Parents can manipulate the space time continuum by counting faster when necessary to prove a point. Alternatively, you could just start at three on the second offense.

Q: What if you take away all of his toys, thus removing all incentive to stay in bed

A: If you do it right, it’ll never happen. Make sure the toys are interesting and never give in. If you take a toy and he remains out of bed, simply start a new three-count and move on to the next toy. Show no emotion, except a steel resolve.

If this method doesn’t work for you, you’re probably failing to follow the next law of all successful benign dictatorships:

Rule #2: Do Not Negotiate with Terrorists: A strong dictator will greet all acts of terrorism against the ruling party with swift and severe justice, resorting to a scorched earth policy if necessary.

My son is adorable, but he is not rational, and he completely lacks the ability to delay gratification. He will use any means necessary to get what he wants now. Negotiation with a toddler terrorist, even if occasionally “successful,” only diminishes a dictator’s power. If your toddler could think rationally, it would go something like this:

“I want to watch another Little Einsteins, but daddy just turned off the TV and said it’s time to eat dinner. I’m probably SOL when it comes to TV, but I’ll open this round of negotiations by whining and pretending I have no bones and see what counteroffer daddy puts on the table.”

Even if you successfully negotiate an end to the tantrum, you have just unknowingly reinforced the simple fact that the whining/jelly leg routine establishes a seat at the table. He now knows that while he might not get more TV, he can certainly squeeze something out of you.

Instead, use your three-count again. If you get to three, he gets a timeout—every time. As always, be consistent and don’t show any emotion, no matter how frustrated you may be. Don’t say a word that isn’t a number between one and three. If you’re at a store, timeout can be the car. Get creative. If you’re under a time constraint, restricting the supply of a favorite set of toys can serve as a stand-in for the timeout. As I said above, I’ve found that you must create demand for more than one toy so he always has something to lose.

Rule #3: Remember the “Benign” in Benign Dictatorship: When the proletariat follows the rules of the benign dictator, he should be rewarded with additional foodstuffs and freedom. Even when revolting, the proletariat should be treated with respect.

Always be fair. Always be consistent, and always follow through on promises. Good behavior should be rewarded, whether it’s with a gift or simple praise. When things aren’t going so smoothly, always remember that you’re the adult. You should have more control over your emotions than your toddler.

Note: minus the hilarious metaphor, the methods to curb “stop behavior” described above are slight variations on those described in the book, 1-2-3 Magic. The book also gives some good advice for promoting “start behaviors.”

My brother, because of my insistence on taking so many photographs, calls me “Markarazi”. I don’t mind it though, because I love photography and my son and my nephews make some great subjects.

Keeping a few simple tips in mind can greatly improve the pictures of your kids. Follow these and you’ll have people asking you where you got your pictures done.

1. Get Up Close

Get your camera close to capture all of those little details like their fingers, toes, curls of hair and especially their eyes. Children change so fast, seemingly day to day sometimes, capturing these images will allow you to relive some of the warmest memories about your child.

2. Get Far Away

Hey, I thought you said… If every picture you have of your child was taken from four feet away, you lose a bit of their relative size. So back up, way up if you have to and use your images to show how small they really are in proportion to the rest of this world we live in.

3. Ditch the Posing

Kids don’t sit still for a damn thing let alone some of your camera shenanigans. So don’t make them. Let them do whatever they want and start taking pictures. There is something beautiful about catching them in those moments when they are just being themselves.

4. Always Be Shooting

If you’re shooting with a film camera you can ignore this one and go back to churning butter. With digital cameras you can take a 1000 pictures at no real cost. So why not? You never know when you’ll catch that moment. This picture above, I shot 700 pictures that day and I caught this as the second to last shot.

5. Don’t Always Shoot Them From The Front

To create some visual interest in your photographs, change the angle at which you photograph your kids. Take an image from behind them, it can help to place you in their shoes, see what they are seeing. Climb up on the jungle gym and shoot down on them. Whatever you choose, at least try it. You’ll quickly find that your photographs are much more interesting this way.

So for everybody I work with who reads this blog (read: the people who have the power to fire me), I’d like to apologize up front for the rather vulgar punch-line of this, my first post of 2010. I ask for mercy only on the basis that this is a true story and simply too funny and embarrassing not to share with perfect strangers on the interwebs.

Before Christmas, Steve’s wife wrote about how their son, Sam, was telling everyone who would listen that he wanted a “big Woody” for Christmas. Obviously he meant a Woody doll from the movie Toy Story, but c’mon, that’s some funny stuff. (Sorry Steve, I meant to say “a Woody Action Figure.”) Kerry and I had an equally embarrassing experience on our last trip to Home Depot.

We were desperately trying to find a couple of light bulbs that would fit into our ancient bathroom light fixture, while simultaneously preventing Dominic from picking up anything too dangerous. He was inexplicably all-consumed by a rather banal calk display in the center of the aisle (see post’s title). The following is the actual transcript of the conversation that followed:

Dom (holding up two tubes of calk): “Daddy what this?”

Me (absentmindedly): “That’s calk, Buddy”

Dom runs up to a benign-looking older gentleman looking at flood lights

Dom (now shouting excitedly): “I have two calks!”

Older gentleman laughs uncontrollably, coughs violently, and gasps for breath. Kerry’s face turns beet red.

Me (shaking my head): Indeed you do, Buddy, indeed you do.

I have a one year old. And I have a dog.

We bought the one year old one of these:

(Whoever invented these better have won some sort of inventing prize.)

To the snack catchers we added these:
 

Then, for an entire hour, my son walks around and around our house, with the dog following him hoping he’ll drop one (he always does). This is fantastic entertainment for my son who believes that our dog is merely another toy in his fabulous collection.

Photo: bludgeoner86

My son has been really into books lately. He’ll sit there and play with them, flipping through the pages, eventually finding one he’d like to be read out loud.

He’ll bring it over, hold it up in the air until I pick him up and start reading it to him. He absolutely loves it and so do I. To see him so excited about books makes me very happy and love spending time reading with him. I just wish he was into more variety.

You see, the kid is infatuated with “Brown bear, Brown bear what do you see?” Which may possibly be the most obnoxious book in existence. I honestly can’t stand it. Now I might be able to get through a reading or two of this book, but my son is resilient and ceases his requests with no fewer than 10 consecutive readings.  Reading that book 10 times in a row is shear punishment.

So I’ve come up with a solution to this little problem that both my son and I are quite fond of. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, the Youtubes:

We recently signed Collin up for Gymboree classes, but every time I go I’m faced with this scenario:

Other Parent: Oh, you’re son is so cute!  Look at those curls!

Me: Well, thank you.

(I look over at their kid. Egh!  Definitely not cute.)

Me: These mats are pretty soft huh?

I hate stuffed animals and I always have.  You talk about worthless toys.  Remember Pound Puppies?  Those were some truly shitty toys. 

Oh look, a dog!  How fun to play with!  No, wait, it’s not. It doesn’t do anything.

Well it’s 2009 and like everything else on the planet, they’ve improved on stuffed animals by adding USB connections.  My son had his first birthday recently and one of our friends got him this guy:
 

This rad little brother’s name is Scout and he’s not your average stuffed animal. Inside he’s got a little computer that you hook-up to your computer via USB. Once connected a small piece of software installs that connects you to a special website where you can customize Scout. You can update Scout to say your child’s name, favorite color, favorite food and favorite animal.  You can also add and remove the songs stored on Scout.

When my son turns on his Scout it says, “Hi Collin, do you want to play?” And when he sings the song about favorite things he mentions mangos and dogs.  That’s pretty sweet if you ask me.  And Collin loves the fact that it says his name.  As soon as it turns on he flies across the room for it.

Scout’s pretty cheap too. He’s only $15 on Amazon right now. Hey, pick a few up for Christmas.  He’s recommended for children from 6 months to 3 years.

I’ll admit, I’m a sucker for techie-toys, so Scout’s a winner in my book.

Uncle Vic had fun with his Facebook Profile pictures. The above is my favorite. He titled it “Alaskan Redneck”

My Uncle Victor passed away last night. He took his own life.

He had some horrible variety of cancer that was attacking his body and giving him agonizing back pain. While it likely wouldn’t have taken him for some time, the pain wasn’t going anywhere. While he didn’t mark his calendar, he has been preparing his family and friends for Thursday night over the past few months, although I’ll be honest when I say I didn’t expect it to actually happen. He went peacefully.

If you recognize his name, it’s because my son’s middle name is also Victor. Dom was named after his great grandpa, but it’s a family name, so I guess in a way he was named after Uncle Vic too. So what am I going to tell my son, Dominic Victor, about my Uncle Victor–the man who affectionately referred to me as “poopeater?” (And no, there is no story behind the nickname, except that when I was eight the word “poop” was considered the pinnacle of comedic genius and Uncle Vic was always willing to oblige.)

Well, first I’ll give Dom the basics. Uncle Vic was an actor. I saw him on stage and on TV. He was enormously tall and by all accounts equally talented. He had the loudest laugh I’ve ever heard, and he would say anything to anyone.

But once I get passed the surface, I’m going to tell Dom that Uncle Vic taught me you don’t have to agree with everything someone says or does to love them, or to be loved by them. My Uncle was pretty much my polar opposite. We disagreed on almost everything and have made very different decisions in our lives, but we just kept right on loving each other anyway. And please don’t misinterpret that last sentence as a reference to his homosexuality, it wasn’t.

But since you brought it up, my first vivid memory involving my uncle is when my mom told me he was gay. I remember being a chubby little seven year looking forward to staying with my uncle on a visit to Chicago. For some reason I also remember I was wearing my brand-new Joker t-shirt (the Jack Nicholson incarnation). I remember being relieved that nothing was actually wrong with him because, based on the “we need to talk about Uncle Victor” intro to the conversation, I expected to hear that he was hurt in an accident, or worse yet, was canceling the visit.

Soon after my initial worry dissolved away, I remember feeling guilty for saying all of those horrible little rhymes that seven year-olds say about homosexuality. You know the ones:

“I love you, you love me, homosexuality. People think that we’re just friends but we’re really lesbians.”

At an early age I learned that I had someone who I loved dearly who was gay, and that shielded me from falling into whatever sexist, racist, homophobic thought patterns some children seem to develop during their formative years.

That weekend in Chicago, his partner Mark was given a proper introduction as Uncle Vic’s boyfriend. We made a hundred paper cranes and played with Mark’s Casio keyboard. It could actually record your voice and then play it backwards. We laughed for about an hour when we realized that “wake up” sounds an awful lot like “F*** you” when played backwards in a muffled robotic keyboard voice.

Mark died of AIDS a few years later. Mark and Uncle Vic had broken up before Mark was diagnosed. My uncle’s next love, Scott, already had HIV when they met. I was a big fan of Scott. He would see middle-aged women, trying desperately to defy the cruel aging process, walking down the street in ridiculous outfits deemed fashionable by whatever designer was popular that week, and simply comment, “well, it’s not for everyday wear.” I spread Scott’s ashes in Italy with my Uncle. Uncle Vic gave me Scott’s cuff links. I wore them to a wedding a few weeks ago and remembered him fondly.

I just reread that last paragraph. It’s funny how fragmented memory can be. I didn’t think about Italy when I heard the news this morning. It was only after I made it through the maze of my mind to Scott. Even now, it seems my brain will only release little vignettes of our trip to Italy, even though some of my fondest memories of Uncle Vic come from those two weeks.

However, I do remember Uncle Vic hanging his head out of my great aunt’s window into the crowed plaza below and shouting “look at these American whores!” in perfect Italian, as my mom and aunt approached. They didn’t think it was as funny as we did.

I also vividly remember the vile dinner we were served at some obscure relative’s house. Uncle Vic and I hid the mystery meat in the potted plant sitting behind our chairs, rather than subject our stomachs to its stench. Uncle Vic asked for seconds and thirds just to amuse me with new and inventive ways of disposing of the meal. During dinner, he also routinely made vulgar and offensive remarks in English to the Italian-only speaking audience. He would say things like, “The meal you just served tasted like dog shit,” with the same inflection you would normally hear, “thank you so much for your hospitality.” It was his goal to make his sisters and nephew laugh uncontrollably in front of their old-world relatives. As soon as we stepped foot outside the door, our pent-up laughter erupted through the Italian countryside.

Finally, I remember taking a few morning runs with Uncle Vic through the cobblestone streets of Rivisondoli, just silently enjoying his company.

It was rare to enjoy his company silently. He usually never shut up. When he spoke he was often saying things I didn’t agree with. He would swear loudly and make vulgar sexual comments in public places just for shock value. Although to be fair, I suspect he would tell you he did it as a social service. He believed that most people are prisoners of their own guilt and misguided sense of right and wrong. He postulated that if everyone would just tell the truth and stop pretending to be pure and pious all the time, the world would be a better place—at least a more honest place. He hated false-pretense and believed that the lies we tell ourselves are the most insidious. He’s probably right about that one.

He never understood how my faith could be anything but an unnecessary shackle. He couldn’t wrap his mind around the concept of faith bringing with it freedom. While he had some choice words for “organized religion,” he had at least some respect for my personal faith. Don’t get me wrong, he thought I was nuts, but he loved and accepted what he perceived to be my nuttiness. He wanted to know every detail about me, even the not so nice ones. Okay, especially the not so nice ones. He didn’t judge me, he just wanted to know me all the way to my core.

And that’s how I loved him, all the way to my core; for who he was; for everything he was; for what he taught me about myself. He wrote something on his blog a few weeks ago that has stuck with me, and I find myself going back to it again and again today. Here is a quick excerpt:

Vic’s Love Q&A:

Q: What’s the difference between unconditional and conditional love?

A: This is a trick question: If it’s not unconditional, it’s not love. Conditional love isn’t love at all, it’s barter.

Q: So you’re saying the phrase “unconditional love” is redundant.

A: Yep, I am.

And so am I, Uncle Vic. I love you unconditionally because there is no other way to love.

Rest in peace, Poopeater.

Dom didn’t get to go trick-or-treating yesterday. He had a pretty high fever and the buzzkill doctor said to keep him inside. We did as we were told. Does that make us good parents or bad parents?

Either way, Kerry and I were really sad for our little guy. We had spent the majority of the week teaching him to say “trick or treat” and his hotdog costume was about the cutest thing I’ve ever seen (and yes, I repeatedly made him say “weiner”). Poor little guy. While he couldn’t go outside, we did let him trick or treat from room to room with Mommy and Daddy, and let me tell you, he got some killer candy. Just for clarification, I mean “killer” as in “name brand sugar-fix” and not “killer” as in “check the tootsie rolls for HIV needles.”

He wasn’t doing much better this morning, and when Dom isn’t feeling well, Dom gets whatever he wants from his pushover parents. Today, “whatever he wants” was watching Disney’s Cars on repeat. I now officially know the numbers of Lightning McQueen, Chick Hicks, and The King (95, 86, 43, respectively, in case you were wondering).

I hate it when Dom is miserable. Even though I’d take his illness away if it was possible, I will admit that I do enjoy it when he just wants to lay on me and watch movies all day. It’s hard to slow him down long enough for a good squeeze when his energy bar is at full capacity. Unfortunately, he won’t be nearly as compassionate in three days when he feels fantastic and I’m showing the first symptoms of whatever nasty little virus he gave me by coughing in my mouth seven times.