Zombie Post: A Commercial Disappointment

Forgive me for not having the energy to come up with an original post today. The Super Bowl took it out of me.

Which is weird, since I was practically napping throughout the entire first half. Then Beyoncé showed up to get extravagantly praised (really? her enthusiasm is insane but the halftime show seemed like typical, generic and overblown pop spectacle to me) and the Illuminati turned out the lights, allowing the 49ers (if you believe the hype) to get their mojo back and make it a game, only to blow it at the 5-yard line, allowing the thoroughly unlikeable Ravens to win their second ring.

Oh well. At least the commercials were good. Except they weren’t, despite the presence of multiple babies.

Which reminded me of my son’s brush with virality. In November 2011, I posted a video of my son pretending to chat on a cellphone. It took off, getting picked up by every site from Yahoo to the Huffington Post, eventually even being shown on “The Today Show.” You’d think with 900,000 views my son would have been flooded with offers to star in the next great Super Bowl commercial. It didn’t happen, so we’re stuck with models making out with “It’s Pat” in uncomfortable, lingering close-up.

But you can’t tell me the video below isn’t more entertaining than pretty much every spot that we saw yesterday.

Zombie Post: And I Thought Babies Were Crazy!

About two years ago, barely more than a month into the whole “Wow, I own a baby!” thing, I wrote a post comparing babies to lunatics. I’ve resurrected it below.

Little did I know that toddlers were about 8000 times more insane. Sure, they’re more fun than babies but they are a lot more unpredictable. The only thing unpredictable about an infant is which fluid is going to come out of him, and from where. Toddlers can do a lot more, but retain only a fraction more understanding of why they are doing it, or what might happen.

Currently, my two year old’s favorite pastime is suddenly, without warning, dive-bombing onto my chest, laughing maniacally while he does it. He also enjoys throwing the football towards me and then screaming like an air raid siren if I go near it. I don’t think he understands what “playing catch” actually means. Who am I kidding, I know he doesn’t understand what it means. He’s two.

It’s actually kind of cute to look back at the post below; I was so naive! Take a look; I have to go stop my son from chewing on the cat’s tail.

Original Post: Insane or Infant?

Hey Snooki: Parents Can Have Fun Too

So Snooki had a kid. *Sigh*

Look, there are plenty of people out there who have kids that maybe shouldn’t or maybe don’t want to – maybe don’t even mean to – and end up being great parents anyway. So I’m willing to give this “maybe” the benefit of the doubt. At least for a while.

After all, it’s not my business to judge Snooki’s parenting, and honestly, I have little interest in thinking about this thing you call “Snooki” at all.

Unfortunately she’s already said something that goes against everything this blog stands for. And I don’t truck with that.

The Toddler Menace Hits (Someone Else’s) Home

Over the summer, when my son was still firmly in “baby” territory, I wrote about the Toddler Menace.

This past weekend, with my son now a toddler himself, my words came back to haunt me.

Real Genius

I’m not going to say my son’s a genius.

I’m going to type it: MY SON IS A GENIUS.

Let me be clear: at my son’s young age, there is a lot he doesn’t know. Hell, at my age, there’s a lot I don’t know. But while my son is still figuring out how to feed himself, he’s been picking up all sorts of other knowledge and skills at an incredible rate.

So I thought I’d start posting about the new things he can do. In list form!

You’re Lucky You’re Adorable, Kid

2011 was a pretty fun year for me. My kid exited his fourth trimester (the first three months of his life, from mid-September to mid-December) and emerged as a little human being, with a personality, expressions, lots of incoherent babbling and, eventually, the ability to walk and say a variety of words.

Watching that emerging personality and continued discovery of new information and abilities goes a long way towards mitigating what can otherwise be a tough stage of parenting. Because babies are dumb. Not because they’re stupid, just because they don’t know anything yet. And they are the opposite of independent. Like, the-citizens-of-North Korea opposite.