Bizarro Daddy
by Mitchell Torek













-4-Foreword


Ambition was never a weakness in me. From the moment that I was born my parents instilled in me a profound truth that I was special and would have wonderful things happen to me. While I like to blame my parents for my every shortcoming I thing that this was their greatest gift to me. It was always comforting when the going got hard to understand without any question that I would grow up to be happy and successful. Of course when I was ten I defined successful as being simultaneously the richest man in the world and ruler of a vaste empire based in Paraguay. This career as benevolent, emperious dictator would of course come after I had spent my youth as the worlds greatest guitarist/songwriter with the worlds longest hair.

This feeling that I had a birthright to riches, power and happiness has given me the inner strength to deal with serious adversity in my life and I now feel that I have achieved the most valuable of these goals. I am a happy man with an incredibly important career that affects people in the most profound of ways. However early on in my life being born with a metaphorical silver spoon may have been more of a handycap than an asset.

While I was born closer to poor than wealthy I grew up with a wealthy childs burden. Since, in my mind, I was destined to great success I never did learn a use for ambition. I was quite smart and could always pull out a passing grade without opening a book so I rarely did. The last time I was the absolute best at something scholastic was in 8th grade. I appeared with a few other students of David E. Williams Junior High School on a local Pittsburgh Sunday morning television show called Jr. High Quiz. We won the first game and I was the high scorer and star. The winning continued until we were playing in the semi-final round for a trip to Washington DC and the championship game. We lost that game, mostly because some of my teammates were panicking and buzzing in with the wrong answer. Of course we would have won if they would have let me have the questions, to paraphrase Keyshawn Johnson, “Just give me the damn question!” I am not bitter but my life would never be the same. After that I had peaked, there was no need for me to study hard or work hard because I was teenage Jesus and everything would come naturally.

Oddly enough I married another alumnus of Jr. High Quiz. In fact my wifes' family had a bit of a JHQ legacy with her sister appearing as well. Unlike me, Mommy seeths amibition. I never made a lot of money because it just wasn't in my nature. As long as I could make it from Monday to Sunday without a financial crisis I couldn't care less about efforting a paycheck. On the other hand Mommy can never stop worrying about something, money in particular, regardless of how well off we have become. Indeed the only financial decision she never sweated the details on was marrying me. While I have never been much of a family provided I like to think that I always provided plenty of motivation and thus have played a huge role in her becoming a very successful executive with a phenominally successful, Barrons' cover quality corporation. Perfection is her only goal, excellence will be tolerateed to paraphrase a framed poster she actually brought home.

It took many years to build our successful family and when the time was right we begate children. Anyone who tells you that if you wait until you can afford children you will never have children is justifying something, it can work out great having kids well into your thirties when you are financially secure. When you are young and poor you don't have to worry about affording groceries. In our salad years the grocery budget often came from the spare change jar that never got close to full. If kielbasa and egg noodles were on sale guess what was going to be featured on the menu at the Torek household. Infants however don't eat kielbasa and they require up to a hundred changes of underwear each week. You don't need to be rich to have kids, love and understanding are free but it was nice to not be digging for change when our children came.

The Boy was an angelic godsend and when the time came we made sure to send him to a great daycare where he was constantly surrounded with loving mature women who had already raised their own broods. Pride and prejudice kept me from even contemplating staying home to raise the children until we had our second child, the Girl. At that point however events forced me to look at my career and make a determination. Was I going anywhere at work that was more important than steering the growth of my two children. Mommy had lapped me in earnings and daycare expenses had doubled to the breaking point.


So finally at the ripe age of forty I had become simultaneously the richest man in the world and ruler of a vaste empire based in Mount Lebanon, Pennsylvania. I am indeed a happy man with an incredibly important career that affects people in the most profound of ways. I even get to be the benevolent, emperious dictator at times. However I have come to grips with the fact that I will never even learn to play a real guitar and I no longer want the worlds longest hair.
















The 9/11 Gut Check.



I was sitting in traffic on the way to work on the morning of September 11, 2001 when I heard the news that a plane had struck the World Trade Center Tower. By the time I got to my office the second plane had struck and it was obvious that the world was changed forever. For an hour no work was accomplished at my mortgage firm. Everyone was glued to the TV and radio. By ten o'clock rumors abound of planes going down around the Pittsburgh area and it was obvious that I had more important places to be. As I drove home I cancelled a lunch date and tried to contact my wife with no luck. When I arrived at the daycare center the children were lined up at the door as everyone shared my fear that this was a day to cherish your loved ones more than ever.

The boy was three and a half at the time and the girl was only nine months. They had both spent their entire lives growing up in a wonderful daycare filled with friends and stimulation. They were learning respect and responsibility. I had no regrets about the start they had to their lives but suddenly it didn't seem fair. They had few memories of sleeping in and playing with each other while eating snacks in front of the TV. They didn't get to while away mornings battling tall grass with toy swords. Their families where transient friends and transient caregivers. In a world at war they deserved a youth of peace before nature forced them to grow up.

Over the next couple weeks Mommy and I discussed the ramification of taking them out of daycare. It would mean sacrificing my earnings which were not great at the time as I had just starting in the mortgage business. I could continue to work but on a very limited part-time basis, one of the only benefits of being in a commision only career. My mother could help a couple days a week so I could get into the office enough to justify my desk space. On the other hand we would be dropping over eight hundred dollars a month in daycare expenses. We wanted to buy a new house soon but the finances looked okay enough. Wallpapering over fear with optimism we gave notice that the children would not be going back to Mother Goose & Friends daycare.

For several months after 9/11 every morning started with new fears of what calamity could happen. The beginning of the end of the world gradually became the beginning of the war to save the world. On a wonderful October sunday Mommy and I went to see our beloved Steelers. Attending a football game with fifty thousand other targets was a nervous undertaking and security was otherworldly. In the first quarter word passed around that we had begun the bombing of Afghanistan and the bundled mass rejoiced. It felt good to be playing offense.

The intensely liberaterian America that I had grown up in became a very different place post 9/11. The rules of life were tightened and we all felt comforted by phrases like “Patriot Act” and “Homeland Security”. Censorship and detentions seemed pretty logical when the lives of millions were at risk. 2002 seemed a lot more like 1942 than 2000 but a sense of community embraced most Americans, particularly those Americans not being harassed, sensored or arrested. My personal hope was that rap music would be summarily stomped out but I just don't wield that kind of influence.

Mommy travels a lot for business and she is not by nature good on airplanes. She is also compulsively responsible so getting on an airplane meant showing up not two, but three hours early. Luggage had to be scoured before use to make sure a manicure kit or a machete wasn't accidentally left over from a pre-9/11 trip. Most importantly Zanax prescriptions needed to be updated and filled.

In the years since that devastating morning America has learned to breath again. We've learned to question ourselves and our government again. We've learned that the beginning of the end of the world doesn't have a timestamp on it. One imprint from that horrible day however will never come off of me, to cherish everyday with Mommy and my children as if it could be the last. It's not trite anymore, it's just true.










The girl in the grey flannel suit will often try to pick and choose options.

When Daddy's always worked and Mommy's always stayed at home the man in the grey flannel suit still had duties to attend to when he wasn't making bacon.

(cut to Ward Cleaver entering the kitchen in his grey flannel suit, taking of his hat. Lovely wife June is resplendent in a pink day dress with matching apron. Dutiful children Wally and the Beaver are sharing peanut butter and jelly with a young Alice Cooper)

June: “Oh, there you are Ward. I knew you would be late from work again so I just gave the kids something. I'll throw on a quick pot roast for you but first you have to give me fifteen minutes away from these kids.”

Ward: “Well gee, sure honey. Um...hey, why don't you go around back and check the car for me....uh (thinking where the cigarettes where stashed)...the stuff you need is in the glove compartment.”

June: “Great dear. And maybe you could use the time to take out the trash, clean out the garage and beat the Beaver.”

Ward: “You bet honey.”

This was a far and equitable arrangement that filled all needs for all the family. It appreciated that while a man worked hard all day, he had the luxury of getting away from the real stress of childrens' voices. Of course many households were not fair or equitable but we are dealing in theory here so we are sticking to generic generational ideals here.

Under today's new paradyme however the girl in the grey flannel suit will often try to pick and choose options. It's understandable that both sexes feel they are getting the shaft in any familial restructuring but it needs to be kept in perspective.

(Cut to June Cleaver coming home from work. Ward is in the kitchen in a cardigan sweater. Dutiful children Wally and the Beaver are trading Yu-Gi-Oh cards with a young Alice Cooper)

Ward: “Oh, there you are June. Late again huh? Well I got Wendy's, there's a chicken sandwich for you in the thing. (he motions to the oven, unable to come up with a proper noun after a day of dumbing down to communicating with children). ”

Ward: “Well gee honey, that's fine. I really shouldn't eat too much anyway, I had a huge lunch. Oh, and after lunch I got so much done. I got all Wally's back to school clothes from Target. You won't believe how cheap they were. And I got some candles and some great stuff for the kitchen. I am so beat. You wouldn't believe.”

Ward: “Oh, I can believe. Jesus Christ spend an afternoon herding cats and you can sure appreciate being exhausted. Listen honey, I need a little breath of fresh air if you know what I mean.”

June: “Great dear. Um...hey, why don't you go around back and check the car for me....uh (thinking where the cigarettes where stashed)...the stuff you need is in the glove compartment. Oh, and bring in the shopping bags when you're done. Looks like you might want to take the kitchen trash out with you too. Hey, here's my card, go fill up my tank to. You know how nervous I get when the gauge goes below a half tank. Now go relax. You're too stressed out.”

Ward: “You bet honey.”

















Trouble with working from home. “Yeah, I'm a mortgage broker...home office, it's great.”

Ninty percent of housewives are just that, “housewives”. They are dedicated and proud of their position in life. In today's culture it is rarified air to breath when you are a stay at home Mommy. Ninty percent of housedads on the other hand are “working from home”. American culture hasn't figured out how to handle a Daddy at home without a job so it is important that he have one, even if he never makes any money doing it.


Most women don't feel an intense need to work if they don't have to. Unfortunately most jobs don't make enough money for a spouse to not make some sort of a paycheck. Staying at home to raise the kids requires one very good salary or a lot of sacrifice. However when a woman makes the choice to stay at home she does so with pride. Despite the new millenium men still derive their pride from their profession and childrearing doesn't count just yet at the lodge.

Studies tell us that a homemaker works the equivalent of three jobs and housewives will tell you that one of those full-time jobs is explaining to her spouse the work she puts in. It is so stereotypical of the man to come home and find a semi-clean house with semi-behaved kids and a semi-groomed wife and assume that she has been semi-busy all day.

Since the first clay apartment buildings went up in Jericho the Ralph Cramptons of the world have thought that if they put as much effort into homemaking as they did at work that the home would always be spotless and the kids would be phenominal prodigies. The Alice's of the world had to fight and scratch for every ounce of appreciation they could get. Finally for the first time in recorded history as woman are ubiqitous in the workplace and pushing the highest ceilings of power those woman who chose to stay home are finding appreciation and pride for their efforts. Meanwhile in the parallel Male Universe; for the first time in recorded history men have to face this same struggle for appreciation and pride, only they are usually struggling with themselves. They are also losing the fight terribly.

When I first became a full time HomeDaddy the first thing that I did was set up a home office for my mortgage work. Using the internet and a telephone I could do everything that I did out of an office only in my underwear. I could compartmentalize work Mitchell from home Daddy. I originated five deals my first month working from home and made as much money as I ever did from an office. I was poised to become a money making, muffin baking, children nurturing parental superstar. Then came month two.

The reality is that the mind morphs when you spend all day with kids. Your field of vision has to be 360 degrees so your focus can never be laser sharp. You have to prioritize the emotional well being of a toddler ahead of the need to make cold calls to prospects. The importance of a deal that can net you thousands pales next to the importance of having breakfast, lunch, snacks and myriad drinks ready throughout the day. If the previous two sentences aren't crystalline obvious then you are in the same boat as just about everyman who has left a job to raise kids. It doesn't come natural and so we fight it. Like a python, this frustration tightens the more we struggle against it. After about three months those men who can't deal with life without a career find a nanny and bail out. There is nothing wrong with that choice but it should affirm to those of us who have chosen to stay at home just how difficult a job we have.

Of course with all that said I still hang on to my office and my business cards even if they don't have the same use as they once did.

(Cut to Daddy wearing shorts and sandles with a golf shirt holding the hand of the Girl who is obviously going to school with a backpack. Daddy is speaking to a well-groomed man in a suit and tie)

Daddy: “Yes, I'm still a mortgage broker but I'm working out of my home office mostly now. I get a lot more done this way. Lot more time for golf too, (Daddy emits unctious laugh) ....we've got to get together for lunch one of these days.”









Forget the Martha Stewart to-do list. Trying to be perfect is the recipe for disappointment.

The first thing that any Daddy does when he makes the move to full-time man of the house is make a solemn vow to maintain a perfect household. Because we aren't bringing home any cash it is natural to think that we will now put in a 40 hour work week raising perfect kids, keeping a spotless house and making truly gourmet meals. That is all crazy talk. Plain and simple unless you want crazy kids, a crazy wife and a crazy dog loose the Better Homes and Gardens expectations.

The first rude awakening will be realizing that you aren't taking a 40 hour a week job. When you are the stay at Daddy, you are punched in when the alarm goes off in the morning. Kids need feed and clothed and then parked in front of a TV until further notice. Wife needs a shirt ironed and slacks found and car gassed and self-esteem reinforced before she's sealed with a kiss and sent off to make some bacon. Now you spend the entire day making sure the kids are where they should be, safe and feed and entertained.

The middle of the day is when guilt is the worst because you spend a lot of time with no important childrearing to do so you feel like you're wasting time. The alternative however would be to leave for work in the morning and hope they are still home and have somehow feed themselves when you get home. With all of this downtime it is natural for the rookie Daddy to charge into laundry and housework and cooking. A real man can be the best no matter what they are doing and you are going to prove it.

Then it gets close to dinner time and you pull out a cookbook. Realizing that you don't have most of the ingredients you pack up the kids into the car and run out to the store. After hearding your kids to the grocery and back you now make a wonderful hot meal.

Dinner is an hour late before it's done and you've used every pot and pan in the kitchen and your nerves are absolutely frazzled from juggling an entree, vegetable, starch and salad. However it doesn' matter because your spouse will undoubtedly be late from work that night and not very hungry. The children will look at your beef bourgonoun and asparagus with looks usually reserved for roadkill and kisses from Auntie.

This is the point of your day when the exhaustion combines with the kitchen steam to turn you into a hateful monster. You can force feed the kids or you can throw a tirade at your wife or you can run up the stairs and throw yourself on the bed moaning. This is the result of shooting for perfection.

Oh, and by the way. As you run screaming out of the kitchen you see that while you where cooking the children have built a castle in your pristine living room using the entire Encyclopedia Brittanica and two cans of Aussie Hair Mousse as building materials.

A lot of Zanax has been sold due to perfect homemakers. Alcholics Annonymous wouldn't have enough women for a social without perfect homemakers. Lawyers have put in thousands of inground pools thanks to perfect homemakers. If you never found the time to be messy before, make the time now.

The most important thing is to realize that the happiness of the family is you most important job. A clean room will only last as long as the kids are away at school. Macaroni and cheese looks like lobster to a six year old. The greatest gift you can give a spouse when they get home is tranquility interspersed with occasional giggles.

Fortunately there are cheats that really do work and make life happy for the whole family. First remember that when you have downtime it is important for you to rest, relax and try to stimulate your brain. Don't be afraid to open a book or enjoy a favorite CD with a fresh cup of coffee. Laundry and chores will make themselves evident on a daily basis so screw it up when you get a moment to be human.

The morning is your time to rock. Virtually everyone needs you when they get up so be sure to be the first one to the bathroom. Don't be afraid of the children watching television in the morning, they don't schedule anything that is too violent and most of it is more educational than anything your would do with them. I haven't seen any studies on it but I have known a couple kids from intelligent parents who didn't watch any TV as infants and they were anti-social and didn't talk until they were seven. Nothing scientific but I'm just sayin'...

The most revolutionary domestic tool of the new millenium has been the Urban Rake. Invented by me it is available in a variety of sizes and colors at any hardware store. I prefer a medium width bamboo model with springs for extra give in tight spots. You can literally clean a two thousand square foot home in twenty minutes with the Urban Rake and it will save you the equivalance of three hundred deep knee bends. On the other hand if you need to work on your leg muscles go for it. The best time to do this is right before Mommy gets home. Put dinner on the table, stick the kids on a bed with a more violent cartoon (you need more adrenaline to keep them occupied this late in the day) and give yourself three minutes per room in the downstairs, two minutes for upstairs. Since the kids won't have time to ruin it your wife might actually appreciate the work.

If you allocate more than forty-five minutes to dinner you are setting yourself up for a fall. Invest in a pizza stone for the oven, it will make frozen pizza's almost palatable and kids can eat them three meals a week. Remember the younger your kids the less dough and cheese they want. Ketchup on a tortilla will work for the toddlers, don't expect them to enjoy your favorite deep dish supreme pizzaria pie until they are in Junior High. Master three starches like mashed potatoes, buttered noodles or Tater Tots. Combining one of these starches with any meat makes an adequate and healthy meal; rolled up baloney and mashed potatoes works for me. You may want to shot for higher standards but you get the picture.

So Mommy and Daddy don't loose there taste buds I like to occasionally order out for us. While the kids enjoy hotdogs and potato chips Mommy and I like to split chinese take out that the little ones would never eat. Splitting chicken with vegetables in brown sauce, with fried rice, steamed dumplings and crab rangoon gives us a wonderful dinner for about twenty dollars. We can afford that because our kids are eating hotdogs and potato chips and they couldn't be happier.











Daddy's first breakfast; “Hey kids, how about pancakes and sausage?”

I used to have the most amazing ability to wake up at any preselected time in the morning. If I usually set the alarm at 7:00AM I would invariably wake at 6:55AM. However if I needed to get up at 6:15AM I would most assurredly wake up five minutes earlier than that. For thirty-five years my body-clock was one of my proudest acheivements. Then I had a son and he broke that clock like a cheap plastic sailboat. While I had once been the master of time I am now merely times' servant.

Every morning, rain or shine, school or weekend, chipper or hung-over, I awake to the burning laser of the Boys' stare. At first he wanted to climb into bed and watch cartoons, then he wanted breakfast and now he wants permission to play videogames in the living room. The result is that I can no longer waken without his help. I assume that I will just sleep through his college years.

The Boy was already in preschool when I officially became a full-time housedad. Every morning I dedicated myself to getting the kids a great breakfast. I honestly never had breakfast until I left home for college. My parents just weren't into making food in the mornings. The fact that I am alive today proves that you can survive without breakfast but I didn't want my children to take that risk. Breakfast on day one was homemade chocolate chip pancakes with sausages. Subsequent days saw fresh baked blueberry muffins and bacon with hashbrowns and all sorts of Americana soulfood.

Practicality set in eventually and I found myself resorting to frozen toaster-type breakfast more as time passed by. Eventually the health benefits of cereal overcame any shame I may have harbored over it's ease of preparation. Doughnuts and untoasted pop-tarts suddenly made sense at this late stage of my life.

Shortly after the Boy shifted from waking up to cartoons in my bed to playing videogames in the living room I noticed a strange phenomenon. Soon after getting my permission to play I would hear a wooden, scrapping sound from below. Graham crackers and poptarts and sometimes cereal boxes would appear on the living room floor.

To investigate this curiousity I snuck out of bed the next morning on hearing the tell-tale scrapping. As I entered the kitchen the interloper looked up at me with huge saucer eyes and a grine so sheepish it would make a lamb blush. The Girl was the culprit, perched atop a chair, reaching for the cookie shelf. I should have known as she has always been the defiant one. If the Boy had wanted to pilfer food he would have come to me and said, “Daddy, can I pretend to steal cereal from the cabinet?” No career in crime for him, politics neither. She, meanwhile lets her Sicilian blood flow more freely.

So breakfast time has become easier for Daddy. I make sure to keep plenty of drygoods in the pantry and milk and juice accessible in the fridge. Some days I still make it into the kitchen to mix up a batch of blueberry muffins but most often my recipes begin and end with pouring milk over cereal. The kids are doing just fine and learning valuable survival skills in the process.





Julie Andrews was the villian in “The Sound Of Music”

Obviously men are hardwired differently than women. Emotional judgements and appreciations are often diametrically opposite. Mommy tells me with obsessive frequency that I am incredibly unsentimental and yet I think that I am incredibly sentimental. I soar and swoon with every mood shift of my wife. I feel the sting of every injury sustained by my two children, physical or emotional. Since we don't have the benefit of seeing ourselves as others see us we can do a little research on our emotional selves by examining how Daddy and Mommy view popular culture.

The most accurate and directed emotional thermometer in pop culture would be the “Sound Of Music” test. This musical mismash of broadway smaltz sentimentality and Nazis has proven to be a relationship staple since 1965. It is a phenominally ironic parallel that this icon to the feminine sensibility would come out the same year that unveiled the ultimate traveling icon of the masculine sensibility; the Rolling Stones. Both icons test relationships regularly. Women nestle their mates onto the coach for a long night of Rogers and Hammerstein just as men drag their better half to a packed stadium for a long night of Jaggar and Richards. How we come away from these trials tells us where our emotional temperature is.

I always come away from “The Sound Of Music” with three clear conclusions: 1. Those children where so much better behaved before that whench Maria showed up. She isn't there two scenes and the kids are literally hanging from the trees. 2. A spoon full of sugar before bedtime make the kids stay up all night bugging me for water afterwhich they pee the bed. Thanks for the advice. 3. When he starts to sing odes to mountain shrubbery the Colonel losses all believability as a U-boat commander; either the writers took liberty with his song choice or his military career.

If your answers mirror mine I can spare your wife the breath and tell you that you are an unsentimental bastard. This is not a serious relationship threat however it does mean you need to take steps to project healthier emotions. Of course you may not agree with the emotions that you will be projecting but there is a big difference between being emotionally honest and appearing emotionally healthy. Put another way; being emotionally honest got you into this mess and appearing emotionally healthy can get you out of it.

Getting back to pop culture icons, one of the strongest symbols of relationship bliss came out of the seventies. Two cherubic mates held hand naked every day on the cartoon page of the newspaper stating to all who could stomach it, “Love Is Never Having To Say You're Sorry”. Well, if you are wondering why we never see them it is because they are long since divorced. That is just my guess but if they believed that advice divorce was inevitable. It isn't enough to say you are sorry when you are wrong, you need to say you are sorry when you where right. If you really want this relationship to work you need to say you're sorry while the knife is still poking out of your chest. You will know whether you were at fault or not, and you probably were, but either way if you make her happy you make yourself happy.

When we are courting our loves we all us pop music to express our loves. Some of the more pathetic among us may have used Led Zeppelin lyrics on notebook paper with illustrations of G-clefs and flowers to keep a girlfriend's attention. Cooler customers might have preferred to get drunk and sing the Temptations' “Ain't Too Proud To Beg”. The real meat in all of these diets is that you are professing to a girl that you would do anything for her love. 'Anything' is usually expressed as murder, suicide, self-mutiliation or walking real long distances.

Now fast forward a decade or two and note that this girl fell for your line, married you and let you have enough sex to make children. Would you still stick your hand in your heart and spill blood all over the stage...or kitchen? Instead, save your blood and bite your lip the next time she really diserves a good insult. Hold her hand and say you're sorry the next time you can't remember how the fight started. Give some effort and sell it like you mean it the next time she asks your opinion on shoes.

Don't have high expectations that Mommy will notice or appreciate your efforts at appearing emotionally healthy. Just as men are hardwired not to express emotions women are hardwired not to see men expressing emotions. Just as we are better at faking it than feeling it, they appreciate the fake more than the real thing anyway. It shows you care.





Three simple sentences you need to save your marriage.


You will know that your marriage is no longer eligible for anullment when you first hear this phrase, “I just wish I could talk to you like one of my girlfriends.” Early on in our marriage my reaction to this was usually something clever like, “Fine, call one while I go out for a drink.” I would be upset that the woman I had invested the rest of my life into valued the opinions of her friends over mine. Only years latter did I realize that she didn' value their opinions at all, she valued the fact that they wouldn't have any.

When Mommy calls a girlfriend and says; “Would you believe?”, “Okay, I need you to tell me if I'm crazy or not?” or “I need your opinion on something.” question is strictly rhetorical. If a friend where to put time and thought into an honest answer she would stop being a girlfriend. There are only three things a girlfriend needs to say in response to a call and they had better stick to the script. Some pronouns may vary but the action verbs are consistant. Here they are but don't tell your wife you know:

1.)“YOU ARE SO RIGHT.”

2.)“AFTER ALL YOU'VE DONE FOR HIM?!!”

3.)“F@#* HIM!!!”

So now the next time you want to be her “girlfriend” you know what to say. Say it verbatim, creativity will only cost you points.












You can't help watch daytime TV and the one issue that seems to come up on every 2.3 talk shows is weight self image.

You can't help watch daytime TV if you are a stay at home dad and you shouldn't. All that evening TV does is entertain and anesthatize, daytime TV dwelves into the personal hell that is reality. I Tivo Dr. Phil everyday and watch it with Mommy. Not only has it given us terrific marital advise but eventually every secret you are afraid will come out comes up on Dr. Phil. This gives you the opportunity to admit your indescrecions when she is under the ether of group therapy. Also whatever warts your character may have pale in comparison to the elephantine examples who volunteer for a phycological biopsy every day.

Unlike Dr. Phil most daytime shows cater exclusively to the problems of woman. Rather than being irrelevant and boring it can be both informative and fun to see how the other side suffers once and awhile. The one issue that seems to come up every 2.3 non-Jerry Springer talk shows is weight consciousness and poor self image. These poor waifs who look like Kate Moss cry to Oprah because everyone they see on Elle Magazine is a size 0. This is a tragic trend in this country dispite the fact that most studies (cited on other episodes) tell us we are too fat. These woman can't seem to see the forest from the trees but I have broken the code and figured out the problem with male perspective and objectivity. Feel free to steal this theory and impress your loved one.

Here's the secret girls, don't look at those magazines. Those photospreads and advertisements are put together by bitter women editors who see their youth running down the sink with their conceiler. The fashion designers who tell you what you should look like are gay old men who want their woman looking like fourteen year old boys. Instead women need to look to honest true-blue American men for insight on what puts the fizz in their pop.

Give these girls back issues of Playboy, or better yet Easyriders to see that real men like girls with curves. Sure, Playboy invests heavily into airbrushing out the bellys and the cellulite but moodlighting and liquor does the same thing in person.

Jerry Springer is a genre all to himself. I first was introduced to Jerry a decade ago when my wife poked me to consciousness in the middle of the night intoning that, “there is something you have to see.” It was Siamese Twin day on some ridiculous show called “Jerry Springer”. Not only was I looking at siamese twins, I was looking at siamese twins joined at the heads who faced in opposite directions. Having been born with an overdeveloped sense of “there but for the grace of God go I” it is an image of frustrating torment that I will never forget. Jerry's ability to astonish his audience with ever more stupid or pathetic guest has become an inside joke with that audience who cheer and jeer the guests with a gusto rarely seen since the age of the gladiators . Jerry's chief bouncer, Steve is a celebrity worthy of appearances inside the Star and Inquirer. The fact that most of his guests appear to acting only lends a more surreal level to the events. Indeed, what is more pathetic, someone who sleeps with his brothers 300lb wife or someone who would pretend to in front of millions for fame? Maury Povich gets honorable mention in this category but his reliance on paternity tests and thirteen year old “hoochie” girls lends deja vu to every episode.





How to legally drug your children (hint, your mother probably did it to you and you didn't turn out that bad)


Perhaps, in a subconscious slight to the Irish, the potato has always held sway as the humblest of the starches. The potato does not have the allure of whole grain wheat in the FDA's “Food Pyramid”, nor does it have the variety or trendiness of rice. Jesus never summoned loaves of potato pancakes for the masses, yet the mundane spud may in fact be the behemoth of starches.

Obviously we must note the potatoes size; how many grains of wheat must the angels gather to equal the weight of a spud? Rice reaped in paddys weight a thousandth the potatoes sown by Pattys. If a Potato was a sumo whestler surely a pea pod would be a Westchester Terrier. Still the argument, vox populei, hold the potato in lowest esteem.

Every Daddy and Mommy however knows a singular truth. God, in his infinite wisdom has never created a more addictive and pervasive intoxicant than the Potato Chip. From the moment a human bursts from the womb it is helpless to the allures of the Chip. A three year old and a seventy year old is equally vulnurable to a potato chips cunning and evil temptation.

Potato chips were originally served by an American Indian named George Crum in 1853 at Moon Lake Lodge, in New York State,USA. Other than tobacco this may have been the most effective killer of white Americans since the introduction of tobacco in the sixteen hundreds. High fructose corn syrup my eventually kill more “White-eyes” but that is only a hypothosis. It is undisputable that no factor has had more influence on the
fattening of America than the potato chip of George Crum.

Critics willl argue that, in it's strictest definition, a “potato chip” is merely a pattern on which vegetable oils are fixed. This should in no way affect the value of the potato chip in MVF, or “Most Valuable Food” voting. Any Daddy who doesn't keep pharmacuetical chips at hands length is risking disaster. Karl Marx once stated that; “Religion is the opiate of the masses” but Karl obviously didn't have kids. Potato chips are the real opiute of the masses of children and should be used whenever warranted.


-1-Daddy's first day dropping off children at new school

Whether it's the first day Daddy's at home or two years into the housedad gig the first day you have to drop your kid off at school is tough. Obviously there are emotional slipknots that need unbound and a lot of research and fear go into preparing for school but those are minor labors. The true hurdle to taking your child to their first shoolday, be it preschool or pre-med school is simple; how do I dress so the other kids and parents won't think my kid is a geek by genetic implication.

It is difficult for children to fit in to a new environment where they will have to make new friends and adapt to new teachers. Harder still is being a houseDad dropping off his kid morning. You worry that the mothers will look at you with dirision or contempt. Not only aren't you out making bacon, you are taking the job of a sister. Will they see you as a union scab breaking into their shop? Will they presume that you are home because you are unable to hold a job due to a pathetic combination of sloth, stupidity and criminal behavior?

The remedy to the paranoid psychosis that I've described is as simple as dress code. Regardless of the weather I always show up at the first day of school wearing dress slacks and a pressed long sleeved oxford shirt, cuffs folded once inside the sleeves, office style. Dress shoes must match and socks are manditory. I am a working man after all, I have a home office, and all the mommies will look at me with admiration at my outstanding balance of home and work priorities.

By the end of week one the dress code goes to clean and casual. A nice golf shirt and pressed slacks with tennis shoes has a college look. Okay, obviously I'm not going to any board meetings in this get-up but I might be dressed for a long lunch. Perhaps, I don't need to work because I am a rich, genius software designer.

After a month on the drop-off job Daddy doesn't have the time in the mornig to obsess about personal hygene let alone wardrobe. Breakfasts need to be made, homework needs rushed and keys need found. All of the houseWives and the couple other houseDads that you've noticed don't really have much spare time either. Daddy's tee shirt doesn't have anymore Similac stains on its shoulders than most of the mommys' tee shirts. Your status is now defined by who your child plays with and whether they bite or get bit.

Daddy can now relax for the rest of the school year.

















For men only, or why the Period is also an Exclamation point

A man has a huge hurdle to overcome as a full time family man. Women have an advantage that is never factored into the domestic equation as an assett. I fully expect bricks to come through my window as I write this but I will stick to this theory because it is the right thing to do and I am a man of values. A woman's menstral cycle is one of the great, unappreciated advantages they have in running a household. Men can overcome this handycap but it takes hard work and focus.

If you are a man reading this you can be reasonably assured that this is between you and me because over ninty-nine percent of the women reading this have tossed it into the garbage after the last paragraph. Now you can pour a drink, preferably something that tastes nasty and makes you snore, and we can speak the truth between guys.

In addition to chasing away the wives this chapter does dwelve into serious, uncharted sociological waters. If you still believe in Darwin you understand that virtually everything that is permanantly stamped on our species has a purpose that at one point or another benefits the species. The menstral cycle; which we will refer to as “the period” to keep it informal, has a reason for being just as noble as the “fight or flight” mechanism or “snoring” (we'll get to that after you've finished your drink). If you don't believe in Darwin then you believe that periods are punishment for Eves temptations in which case you had better follow your wifes example and throw this book away.

While human males have staked out the hunting part of our culture for a few million years women have pretty much been stuck at home doing the gathering chores. Gathering was in fact the first work-at-home business opportunity, even predating envelope stuffing and pyramid schemes. Without so much as a breast-pump or Similac it was impossible for Mommy caveperson to accompany her peers to the hunt regardless of her abilities.

Now, as every good hunter knows, the best time to hunt is during a full moon. Folklore has it that the preditors are more active in the well lite night so the grazers are more hungry during the day. In the good old days however it was more a case that you were less likely to get lost in the woods during the night. Without Coleman stoves and flashlights it was “Blair Witch Project” all the time for the caveperson. Thus it was common for the males of the clan to head out into the unknown to hunt every 28 days or so. They might be back with a mammoth in a day, a week or never.

This social paradym left female cavepersons stuck home with the kids and the in-laws literally at arms length. Such a dynamic would lead most normal persons to go insane and in fact it did. Most fruedian mental disorders probably date back to these lunar hunting expeditions. How many caveMommies looked at their little caveboys and cursed their caveDaddies out loud for all the clan to hear. With only other caveMommies to hear the cursing and kvetching would only grow louder and more irrational. Since we now know from medicine that menstral cramping can be induce by stress this naturally created a regular cycle of pain, blood and spousal hatred.

How could this horrible curse on humanity become a blessing for the modern day housewife? Simply, it allows women to schedule and control their hostility. Thirteen times a year with reasonable regularity woman can take a week off from rationality. Women don't just know their periods they know the periods of their girlfriends. As soon as Mommy thinks a period is coming the first thing she does is call her best friends to confirm the timing. They understand, subliminally, that both a curse and a blessing is coming and they celebrate it with friends.

A good analogy lies in an original Star Trek epidode documenting how Spock must return to the planet Vulcan for Mating Season. Every seven years Vulcans revert to their primordial selves to fight and to mate. For these, most rational of beings, to literally fight to the death in reproductive heat is not only accepted, it is accomodated. Spock may not have acknowledged it but he was probably looking forward to some serious uncontrolled insanity.

In his very brief existance modern human males have not had the luxury of predictable episodes of adrenaline, anger and blood. In many cultures man has not had to hunt wild beasts for food since as far back as the ninteen seventies. While the instinctual thirst for life-or-death struggle still sticks in our craw, most American men rarely face a tougher struggle than changing phone service. Men thus, have to create, without benefit of schedule or reason vents for their frustrations.

Married men spend more than three times as much time in bars as married women. Is it because Daddies are so much more unhappy than Mommies? On the contrary, it is because Daddies don't know what to do with their pent up insanity. We can't be sociopathic for a week every month so we go to the bowling alley every week, get stinking drunk and fight with our best friend because he mistakenly wrote down a 127 when we obviously bowled a perfect games (as far as I can remember).

Now that you've finished your drink I have one thing to take solice in. Men have retained one primordial characteristic that woman don't appreciate. CaveDaddy couldn't be up all night to protect his clan so Darwin provided him with a great natural defense mechanism that worked while he slept. The first home alarm system was in fact snoring. The louder the snore the larger the potential beast in the logic of a saber tooth tiger. Thus caveHotties for millions of years fought for the attention of men who could wake the dead with trainwreck snores. How quickly tastes change.





A perfect example of irrational male temper. Daddy takes his kids to the pool on the first day of summer break.

Now that we've firmly established that the woman's menstral cycle allows her far better control over her temper than the man let's look at a perfect example I encountered just the other day. A ridiculously, stupidly, optimistic Daddy (me) foolishly thought it would be a great idea to take the kids to the local municipal pool on the first Monday after school had let out. The lesson in this parable is that the best way to control your temper is to not be ridiculously stupid.

I had everything a Dad could need packed in the beach bag including everything from snacks and sunblock to good sunglasses for girlwatchin'. By eleven AM we were out the door an on the road to wet and wild adventure. A quick money stop later we were at the pool ready for action. Daddy stroud up to the entrance with two kids and a twenty pound beachbag in tow. The place wasn't busy at all and the kid at the window was enjoying breakfast. I had to wave for his attention.

“Sorry sir but the pools just open for adult laps until twelve. You'll have to come back then.” For some reason I apologized to the swim-clerk for my untimelyness and told the kids we'd have to play in the adjacent park for a while, not long.

The kids played in a little jungle jim situated between the pool and the snack bar for about five minutes when another teenage pool professional apprised us to the fact that this area was also not open to the public until noon. Again I gave a knee-jerk “Sorry” for having misinterpreted the intended use of jungle jims and water fountains shaped like lions. As we walked out she closed the large wire-fence gate behind us so the sanctity of “Adult Laps” wouldn't be defiled by any more civilians.

After spending some serious “sit in the grass in your swimsuit with the sun beating on your head and ants picking at your feet” time at a nearby park we returned to the pool about 12:15 sweaty and ready for aqua-fun. Being greeted by the same attendant that I had met an hour before with no recognition what so ever, I told him I had one adult and two kids under eight.

“Okay, that'll be $16.50.” He said.

“Jesus Christ, are you kidding me? How do you come up with that kind of total for a freaking pool?” Well, I thought that, I didn't say it however. Living in a howty-towty neighborhood comes with it's commandments and right at the top, between, Thou shalt not have unapproved lawn ornaments and Thou shalt not own vehicular subwoofers is: Thou shalt not look cheap. So I peeled off a twenty and we headed threw the lockerroom into the pool.

Immediately past the pool entrance I came upon a table where six teenage pool functionaries sat watching the five lifeguards stationed around the pool who in turn were intently not watching the four people who were actually in the pool. I walked up to the table, told my kids not to go near the water yet and asked broad while glancing over to a stack of plastic chaise lounges, “Hi, so is this where I pay for the lounge chairs?” I smiled and looked back at the teenagers who didn't look up.

Reflective sunglasses made it hard to read the lifeguard reserves eyes but there faces and body language revealed no tells that I was affecting their lives in the least. I positioned myself in the vision path of the most mature looking one of the bunch and repeated myself more directedly. As he looked up his eyebrows went down behind wrap-around reflective plastic lens.

“No.” Apparently he didn't think I might have a follow up but I did.

“Okay, how does this work?” I said. I didn't have any desire to apologize for anything now.

“You pay at the front and just take the chair.” He pointed back to the lockerroom entrance through which I had emerged. He then turned his back to me and resumed starring at the placid waters.

My trigger had been pulled. Just as my great grandfather to the 10th power might have felt when he stepped in a steaming heap Wooly Mammoth dung a hundred and fifty thousand years ago I switched into antagonistic preditor mode. Raising my voice only a click I addressed my two kids who were gleefully looking at the blue and white expanse:

“Okay kids, daddy's got to go back in for a minute but you guys just stay here. Feel free to run around near the pool as much as you want. Don't worry about making the lifeguards feel nervous.”

I peeled into the lockerroom with the speed of Mercury and proceeded to pay another $10 for a plastic chaise lounge chair. Two minutes later as I counted my change the Boy and the Girl appeared with Wrap-around sunglassed Pool Pro in tow.

The ensuing verbal row lasted about ten minutes and featured nonstop, spit throwing vindictives that explored how much of a self absorbed prick Wrap-around Sunglasses could be and how little I cared about making a scene in front of every mother and child in Mount Lebanon, Pennsylvania. Eventually we settled the debate on the point of pool ownership, he thought I was a guest in his pool and I thought he was an employee of MY pool. I finally pulled out my ultimate blowhard card:

“So how much money do you pay in taxes every year to Mount Lebanon?”

His wrap-around lenses seemed to bend with his focused, furrowed brow. “None, I don't live in Mt. Lebanon.” That he thought he had scored a point on me excellerated my irratation to pure anger. Like my great grandfather to the 10th power bull-riding the Mammoth I wanted toplunge a wooden spear into his skull. Instead I spoke to his supervisor.

I prefaced my statement to the supervisor by saying that I didn't expect that he could or would do anything but I needed to make my objections to Wrap around Sunglasses' attitude know. After the supervisor made it clear that he count'nt or wouldn't do anything I put my kids first and let it go. I spent the rest of the afternoon sucking in my stomach and trying to keep two kids who can't swim on my radar.

Three hours later after a wonderful $18.00 lunch of a slice of pizza, two hot dogs and a bag of chips split three ways my little family headed out to the car to go home and find shade. My day became complete when my car keys were missing from the super safe compartment in the beachbag. I freaked.

Charging back to the pool I first looked where my lounge chair had been, then I checked with the previously helpful supervisor, then I came to the obvious conclusion.

Wrap-around Sunglasses had stolen my keys just to get back at me. It was as obvious as the smug on his face. This agrevated charge brought out the General Manager of the pool. I could barely speak coherently from the anger but it was clear that the attitude in this organization came from top down. He basically told me to call the police if I had suspicions but he wouldn't intervene. With the laser precise logic of my great grandfather to the 10th power a hundred and fifty thousand years ago I made a stand. I charged over to the entrance both and ordered the swim clerk, who still showed no recognition, to give me the phone. I called the police and proceed to the locked car to wait for there arrival and the beginning of the investigation.

About thirty seconds after I stationed myself at the bumper of my car to wait for the law the Girl comes up to me with a puzzled look.

“Daddy, are you looking for these?” She pulled the missing car keys from a pocket in her purple terry coverup and the whole day came into focus instantly. Minutes later the policeman gave me my first knowing nod and consoling smile of the day as I explained to him that I was just an idiot.





















Amazing answers to astonishing questions you didn't want to ask

I have so far imparted some very important insights into what makes a woman tick. Often these have been tidbits of wisdom to be shared and discussed with your wife. This chapter however is not. You may want to tear these pages out and burn them after you have read them but they will explain one of the most illusive mysterys of live.

At one time woman probably peed upright just like men. Seriously, don't give up on the book yet, I have a point. After spending a few generations picking up after husbands and children the female branch simple didn't have the energy to stand up for it anymore. So they didn't stand, they sat whenever hairy little monkey-metabolized kids allowed.

It took me about a week to hit the wall. Closing the bathroom door after cleaning up some child or dog or fishes excrement I sat on the toilet and realized a zen-like peace. Thoughts of baseball and cannons flooded by mind and I just didn't feel like getting up to urinate. Eventually it became a rare but occasional pleasure to catch some relaxation with relief. It certainly makes sense how a habit like this couple get hardwired into a gender after a million or so years. Then, after a couple weeks I realized a consistant pattern emerging.

For thousands of years man has pondered this simple question: why don't women pass gas in public? Recently Oprah told me the world that man and woman pass gas with the same frequency, about 16 times a day, yet female fart sightings are as rare as extraterrestrials. The incontriverable fact is fact is that sitting to pee causes gas to pass. It is the perfect finish to a good bathroom break and the man never sees it happen. Like Jean Paul Sarte said, “If a woman farts in zee bathroom and no one else is there to hear, did she really fart?”









The crispy cookie of self doubt

The battle against self doubt is endless when you are a stay at home Daddy. You start the day with the right mindset but you stumble onto constant reminders of how you are a freak. As you make the beds you ask yourself how much a maid makes and wonder if that is your market worth. When you see ads on TV showing tortured executives checking into friendly hotels on business trips you dream of obsessive laboring over details and deadlines with other adults. When your mother comes over and you inevitably digress into small talk about the kids, family gossip and how Mommies career is going you wonder how long until you start making a quilt with the other womenfolk.


Afternoons are particularly stressful because children are naturally more needy in the afternoons. They are a little tired and there is no relief from shool. You are now under the twin pressures of making dinner and getting the house in order so Mommy won't think you have been online in baseball chat rooms all day. Add to that the guilt of having spent much of the day online in baseball chat rooms and you have all the ingredients for a high yield stress bomb.

By 6 o'clock, you are reduced to a crispy cookie of self doubt; You'll never have a real career again. Your father will never respect you as a man if you're not bringing home a paycheck. At least soon you'll get support and stability from my life-partner. Mommy will be home to comfort and help. That's when the door opens and your heavensent angel appears.

(Cut to wife standing at the door crying, throwing coat and purse on floor)

“I can't believe my children are growing up without me. All I do is work all day, for what? All the housewives look at me like I'm a hooker.”

(Mommy and Daddy in unison)

“I'm such a failure.”.

To quote Wesley to Princess Buttercup in The Princess Bride, “Life is pain princess.” Not only is that an appropriate, saliant quote, it also illustrates that houseDaddys quote children's movies. This is yet another daily reminder to you that you are pathetic. The consolation prize is that everyone is pathetic.

Mommy spends the day wondering what others think of her. Does the frontdesk receptionist wonder what kind of heartless shrew would leave her babies every morning for money? Do the houseMommies pity her for missing all of childhood's precious moments? Do sanctamonious pietists see her as a heretical “Fema-Nazi”? By the end of the day Mommy is pathetic.

Still more pathetic are working Daddy's who insist their wife stay home even though she has a better career path and likes to work more than him. How pathetic are those who both work because life is too expensive for just one average salary, meanwhile daycare is eating half of their take home paycheck? Most pathetic are those who either can't or won't have children for any of a million reasons.

“Life is pain princess.”


Pretend you're a pimp if it makes you feel more like a man.

Anyone who's been married long enough to get out of the church knows that finances are, by far, the greatest hurdle to marital bliss. Just when you think things couldn't get any happier Mommy is told by a thirteen year old store clerk that her charge card is maxed out. Even though I've never used that card, or bought my own clothes for that matter, I am obviously to blame. One of the lumps you need to take as a man is that all financial bumps are your fault. The sooner you embrace this fact the sooner you can go on to a pacific marriage. Fight this fact and you'll end up on a water tower with a high powered rifle.

This may be the most important chapter in this book. While that may be setting the bar rather low I would still encourage you to have your wife read this because I can tell her what she needs to know without retaliation and she will respect my opinion because I am published. Just to be safe I will address the rest of this chapter directly from me to your spouse and I promise not to mention menstral cycles or natural gas:

Hi,

My name is Mitchell and I am a housedad with a wonderful wife, two phenomenal kids and a great marriage. This book is my way of helping new stay at home fathers get acclimated to a role that society has not trained us for. Most of this book is pandering fluff generated to stimulate giggles and booksales but this chapter on family finances can literally save marriages so I'm going to be drop-dead serious. In my dedication to research I have spent the past fifteen years making every financial mistake possible so I know of which I speak.

The hardest task a couple faces when the wife becomes the sole breadwinner is both parties giving up their pride. A woman bringin home the bacon naturally feels a sense of ownership with her paycheck. You are leaving your kids every morning and putting in long hours so your kids can have the upbringing they deserve. You often feel like you are prostituting yourself for that paycheck and you sure as hell aren't overpaid. When you come home that last thing you want to do is waste hours being an unpaid accountant. You deserve downtime after you punch the clock. You don't want to go out drinking after work but you do want to come home to peace of mind. There is only one way to get everything you deserve and it requires you to trust your husband.

It is almost impossible for two people to control one household budget. Someone needs to take the reins and make all of the day to day checkbook decisions. This needs to be the home-body regardless of their financial savvy. This is where the trust comes in, even if your spouse hasn't balanced a checkbook in their life it is a skill they can and must master. If the breadwinner controls the checkbook you can kiss domestic bliss goodbye.

If the wage earner is handling the finances there are several pitfalls you have to prepare for. Every day the stay at home spouse is going to need money for expenses, a grocery trip, a tank of gas, a pizza. It is demeaning to have to ask for money everyday and it infuriating to have to itemize a litany of expenses when you just know that you need a hundred bucks. Bill paying is an irritating and time consuming task. Every month you can count on spending at least an hour on hold waiting for a “customer service representative” from Bangalore, India to explain to you how much they understand your cellphone billing problem and how equally much they can't do anything about it; 'have I handled your question satisfactorally and is there anything else I can do for you today?' No one should deal with there family after spending fifteen minutes weaving through prompts only to be hung up on without reaching a real person and you shouldn't either.

Most important, keep in mind that you need to reinforce your spouse 24/7 that they are important and valued despite the fact that they don't bring in a paycheck and that illusion is blown the first time you say, “I bust my ass everyday for that paycheck and I'll spend it as I see fit.” If that's the way you really feel then you better get on the phone and make daycare arrangements because you don't respect his contribution and you don't deserve the good life he's making for you.

Ideally you should have separate checking accounts. This is not a lifestyle choice but a practical security measure. With debit cards and ATMs on every corner it is literally impossible for two people to keep one joint account balanced. My wifes paycheck is deposited into her account from which she gives me a check every two week pay period. Every other pay goes to the mortgage with bills in between. I make sure to include a couple hundred dollars for miscellanious expenses like toilet paper or a night at the ballgame with friends. I keep my bills on a spreadsheet and the numbers only change slightly from month to month but this gives me one bill that I give to Mommy. This is for her information, not her approval and that is where the trust comes in.

The biggest reason couples get into trouble with debts is when a husband or wife is ashamed to hit up their wage earning spouse for too much money. Wage earner bitches and moans when a big bill hits so mousey spousey hides the bill, expecting to pay it next month. Next month things are worse and now they owe $800 to the gas company. Spineless spouse now pays the gas company by going late on the mortgage. Opps, mortgage companies don't let you make partial payments and the only payment arrangement they will make with you is called 'foreclosure'. Similar scenarios happen to a lot of families young and mature. Once the debts are somehow resolved one spouse has lost their confidence and the other has lost their trust, a recipe for divorce.

In conclusion, if you are the breadwinner in the family you must first ask a question: do I want to stay married to this man (or woman)? If the answer is yes then all you have to do is turn the bills over to him and make is very clear that you don't want any secrets and you will give them whatever amount of money they ask for whenever they ask for it. Total honesty and transparency will keep your household out of debt and keep Mommy and Daddy very happy in the evenings when they should be watching TV rather than arguing over bills.

Thank you for listening to me and think about my advice before you dismiss it. Now, give me back to your husband, I have a last word for him;

Women who stay home take over the finances, it's been a million year struggle but women know it's for the best. Men who stay home feel ashamed to take money from the wife. Save yourself years of turmoil, grow a set and take her paycheck. Pretend you're a pimp if you really need a job title to feel like a man.







-5-“The Incredible Fifteen Minute Time Machine”

When you get married the TV becomes the central conduit of most entertainment. Date night every night becomes TV time on the coach every night. It's mostly economics; you've turned your bartab into a mortgage payment. There is also the practical concern that leaving your preschool children alone in the house while you and the wife go to see the latest “Starwars” episode is so passe.

Of course by the time you have kids, assuming you've waited until after the wedding reception is over to have them, you've probably lost most of your social momentum anyway. You're single friends hate being the 'third wheel' and your married friends are likely to be indentured to children already.

Once Baby shows up you are faced with the horrible fate of missing your eight o'clock shows while putting the kiddos to sleep. Somethings got to give and it better not be TV time. Remember that happy parents make happy kids, stressed out parents who give into their kids have spoiled, unhappy kids. I have friends who let their children stay up until they pass out. This is a boon to the ratings of “The Tonight Show” but it results in parents who either hate each other or don't know each other. The one topic on which teachers, behavioral scientists and evangelicals can agree is that children need at least eleven hours of sleep each night and parents need at least eleven hours of time without children each and every night.

The television networks make this more irritating by putting some of their best shows on at 8:00PM in the pre-remote control notion that you will leave the channel on throughout the evening rather than get up off the couch. The cure for this cunundrum is “The Incredible Fifteen Minute Time Machine”.

Simply set the clocks in the house fifteen minutes fast and don't be proactive on teaching Jr. how to tell time. Once they catch on in kindergarten or first grade they'll be able to read their own bedtime stories and say prayers before eight. Once they get some book learning in school and can break the code you let them act like big kids and keep the light on for a half hour after stories. You come up during a commercial break at eight thirty, kiss their sleeping angel faces and turn out the lights.

Happy parents make happy babies.



















Trouble with keeping weight down. Look in fridge for a monkey wrench, take ice cream sandwich as consolation prize


If you had a meeting of first day, stay at home dads, when you had a reunion a year later you would need a much larger hall. They simply wouldn't fit anymore in the same space because the membership had grown so much, not in numbers but in physical size. Men staying home eat, and eat and eat. It is not pretty but it is pretty universal.

When you are home most of the time the layout of your home mysteriously changes. Suddenly, almost overnight, everywhere you want to go takes you through the kitchen. You want to go from the your master bedroom to the master bathroom, you go through the kitchen. Everything you need to find is in the kitchen. Need a monkey wrench? Be sure to check the refrigerator and if it's not there take an ice cream sandwich as a consolation prize.

I have always had to swim upstream against my weight but I could always nip a fat surge in the budd. Being 5'10” and only slightly over two hundred pounds was a healthy weight to my logic. I wouldn't run around the neighborhood without a shirt but I was well proportioned and in good tone. After a couple of years at home however the scale started creeping upwards of two hundred thirty. XL shirts needed more and more stretching to go on comfortably and when I looked in the bathroom mirror I needed to suck in my cheeks a little more to do my Euro-trash, headshot glance. Finally I realized that I had no neck or chin left and I pannicked.

Fortunately as a dieting veteran of nearly thirty years I had some experience to draw from as I researched my diet options. Bulimea was not viable because I, frankly, have no problem with eating after a good puke. I subscribe to the old saying; “Feed a cold, feed a fever, feed dysintery, feed anything...”. The Adkins Diet has it's attractions but frankly it is too hard for someone like me. I'd be stuffing myself on steak and cheese when a potato chip would fall from the sky, poof, diets blown and that steak is going onto my butt. No, I need something that will work fast and easy. Sounds like a plan in fact.



DIARY OF A FAT MAN
or Twenty Pounds In Twenty Days

Day One:

I got the first kick about 15 minutes after I went to bed last night. She asked if I had any snore strips left and I directly used them. I laid on my side away from her. I even sprayed an anti-snore concoction to numb my Uvula (you know, the thingee hanging in the back of your throat). I would swear on a stack of bibles that I didn't even get to sleep before the second kick came. This time I would have to take my pillow downstairs, kick the dog off the sofa and sleep alone. My wife loves me but she needs to sleep.

My breasts are starting to reach my back, which is a feat my hands can't manage without dislocating my shoulder. At 5'10”, 232 lbs I have the statistics of a fullback, which would be nice if my body fat ratio was under 50%, if my 40 yard dash time wasn't measured with a calendar and if I could simply manage to stand up under the weight of pads. No, my window to the NFL has long closed but this body continues to expand.

I owe it to my family to lose weight and I owe it to my health, but more so I owe it to my vanity. At the age of 43 I am aging like a week old banana. Gravity is the number one culprit and fat is it's number one accomplice. If I ever want to be look like I pretend to have looked as a young buck I have to shed this protective bubble wrap and let the real me loose.

Every reference I see preaches that the only lasting way to fat freedom is patience, exercise and rice. I like rice but the rest of that equation just isn't in my nature so I am going to do it my own way, the Fast and Easy Way (perhaps I should patent that, it's hot).

Okay, we start the day off right, with water and nothing else. One thing my experience has learnt me is that once food or a tasty beverage pass my lips forget about it. Like a shark sniffing blood, I become a predator possessed once activated. Thus I will avoid anything will taste for as long as possible. If I don't taste, then I won't crave. If I don't crave I won't need to diet. Working out my my home makes dieting far more difficult. Thus I need to hide or if need be destroy anything that looks tempting in the house. Out of sight out of mind and just water. That is the plan.

Day Two:

Hey, day one was quite a success as my 24 hour weigh in shows me at 224 lbs, or a whopping 8 lbs loss. More than anything this confirms my wifes long contention that I am “full of crap”. Of course anyone who basically fasts for a day will experience a dramatic first day loss due to both the 'offloading' of stored up food matter but it can be accentuated by an accompanying water loss if you suppliment your fast just right. Here's what I did;

My first goal was to avoid eating anything at all for as long as possible without torturing myself. The best way to do that is to start off the day with a lot of water and keep it up all morning. For a long time I puzzled why doctors and experts insist we need to drink water to loss weight. Why, I wondered, wouldn't diet soda work just as well. I finally determined the answer by looking at the effects on myself. First, I never lost weight drinking a lot of diet drinks so the anectdotal evidence was not good. The carbonated gas that satiated my appetite so quickly would leave me with a stretched out and yearning stomach when it dissipated. The last piece of the puzzle came when I saw a study that showed artificial sweeteners stimulate appetite rather than slake it. Tea with lemon is a tasty kick when the water becomes boring.

The other key to fasting is to change your traffic patterns. I work from home so the refrigerator has become a pitstop between any two points in the house. If I need to got from my office to the hall closet, I have to check into the refrigerator first. Need a wrench from the garage? Check the 'frig. Simply avoiding the kitchen, while difficult, eliminates 90% of the fasting challenge. However after awhile you do want to treat yourself and there are safe options.

As dinner approached I pulled out a container of potato chips (don't keep a big bag around in case you go crazy) and I counted out four chips. Then, before I got the scent, I put the container away and pulled lowfat cottage cheese out. My treat would be the four chips with as much cottage cheese as I could scoop up. I admit to 'double dipping' but this forced me to take small bits of the chips and enjoy every last morsel. Use your tongue to push the chewed food back to the front teeth so you get twice the chewing pleasure and taste from your food. Five minutes later I finished my snack and I had a very satisfied mouth filled with goey, chewy, tasty memories.

As the day wore on I came back several times to a veggie tray that I had left over from a dinner party. I allowed myself dip because it turned brocholli and mushrooms into exstatic mouth parties. I finally had dinner about ten that evening, it was a can of heated, diced tomatoes kicked up with cayenne pepper. Seventy five calories never tasted so good. Most of these foods use more calories to digest than they impart and the veggies and water and tea are all great natural diuretics, thus enhanced water loss.

Day one is always the most important day of any diet so it is important to do everything you can to make it a success. The best way to achieve that is to stay on the move. Get a craving, move. Feel like lunch, drive to Target. Snack machine looking at you, walk around the parking lot and tell yourself how buff you are looking every minute. Whatever the temptation, get up and leave, preferably for a couple hours.

If this is inconvenient then resign yourself to buying a larger clothes size and being a fat person. Look at the mirror without sucking in your cheeks or contorting your smile and eyebrows to give you a faux face-lift. Instead pretend you are walking down a hall looking down at papers and see yourself as others see you. Best of all, pick out someone of the opposite sex who are your age or slightly older and obese, then picture having sex with them. If I have to fill in any more blanks you aren't ready to loose weight.

Day Three:

Two days into the diet I faced the worst hazard a diet can face; going out with friends on a weekend. Specifically I went to a Friday night baseball game. My gameday ritual is simple; pick up my bobblehead at the gate and then proceed directly to the Outback Steakhouse where I eat and drink while watching the first few innings. Obviously this is not conducive to loosing weight.

To begin with I ate only veggies with dip all day so my gut was primed for protein. Having a night out on the schedule can be terrifying but in fact it should be motivating. It's easy to nibble and fast knowing that a drunken feast awaits, you just have to control the drunk and the feast.

I decided the drink of the day would be scotch and soda, which in addition to having only 64 calories is also easy on the potential hangover. Because you can taste the whiskey in a scotch and soda I only ended up drinking two and I still enjoyed a mellow buzz which dissipated over the evening. A good rule of thumb for drinking on a diet is that if it tastes good, don't drink it. Beer is carbonated so it constantly stretches your stomach, making room for more. That's why teenage girls who still can't finish a Happy Meal can chug half a case of malt liqour at a frat party. A restaurant gin and tonic is as menacing as a Mountain Dew but because it is so tasty (and carbonated) you can easily drink them all night and not even realize how drunk you get. At about 170 calories four gin and tonics will hit you up for almost seven hundred calories and you won't have a more appreciable buzz. You will however be a more dangerous driver, a more rediculous conversationalist, a flacid lover and a fat puffy person with tremendous munchies.

For dinner a had a twelve ounce cut of steak, rare, with steamed veggies. Slicing the steak very thin and chewing thoroughly is essential. Dipping the veggies in soy sauce liberally made them fantastic. Because my stomach was shrunk and I wasn't drunk I actually couldn't finish the steak. I did split a half rack of ribs appetizer which was so worth the calories. Making your calories count is the most important part of the night out.

I am proud to have survived the night out, too bad my beloved Pirates choked in the ninth or it would have been perfect.

Day Four:

When I weighed in this morning I had lost another 3 lbs, bringing me down to 221. Having lost a net 10 lbs in two days I was very happy indeed and I looked at Saturday with relief. I was going out with my wife that evening to a Casino and frankly, all I do at a casino is gamble. I fiqured that if I kept to a couple scotch and sodas and avoided the traditional breakfast on the way home I would be in excellent shape. All I had to do was stay on target during the day but that was harder than I anticipated.

I kept to veggies during the day with a minor knosh of potato chips and cottage cheese so things looked good when we packed the kids up for a trip to Aunt M Js birthday bash. We were to be there at 4:30 as the surprise honoree was to arrive at 4:45 from a baby shower. We would then spend an hour making nice and then be on our way to fun. For an hour and a half I waited for Aunt M J amidst a house full of adults I barely knew and children I absolutely did not know. Just so you understand I am one of those pathetic men who adore their children with unbound passion yet cannot work up an ounce of care for any other rugrats. I was thus forced to lurk the snack table which had a small but very high quality selection, I found a bean salsa that lifted my spirits and focused on that. Finally the birthday girl showed up at 6:00, a full hour and a quarter later than her mother, who had attended the same shower. Her sister protested that they hit every light and had to get gassed however it was obvious that they had 'gassed up' at a bar on the way home. Politely we wished Aunt M J well and got out by 6:05, quite steamed and packing bellys full of junk food. I did get the recipe for the bean salsa however.

Sustainance at the casino was limited to Scotch and cigarettes. As I have mentioned before the taste of scotch actually retards the urge to drink so after five hours of gambling I had a reasonable four drinks in me. In additon to being only 64 calories per drink alcohol is a very effective natural diuretic so I figured I would do okay on the scales. I made it home and into bed without running over any buffets or Mr. Doughnuts. In the end I survived the Birthday Trap, but just barely.

Day Five:

As expected I had a minor loss when I weighed in Sunday morning, coming in at 219. However I chaulked some of this net twelve pound loss to water loss. Mind you I have been drinking water and tea like a fish as well as a measure of scotch which fish don't usually imbibe. These fluids are all diuretic and combined with the tremendous volume of brocholli I have been ingesting it has resulted in my sloughing of water like a wet duck in a wind tunnel (feel free to inject your own, certainly better, analogy). Every Sunday is a national holiday when you are married to an Italian girl but thanks to my son's baseball schedule we ate relatively light. Still I found myself freely eating carbs left and right all day, from fish sticks and french fries at lunch (on top of my not-so-dietetic brocholli carbonara salad) to momma's pasta fagioule for dinner. That evening had me nibbling heavily the already mentioned bean salsa (my wife couldn't let the recipe go to waste) during the final episode of Survivor X.

When I went to bed I knew that I had not had a good diet day, however I hadn't tried to. It's important to have days when you can relax and still not overdo it. I was worried to see if the heavy carb load would not only replenish my fats but also refill my gut and cause my water to increase. Monday could be ugly weigh in.


Day Six:

220! I may never have been so happy to see a one pound weight gain. I did pick up a net pound but I could have done much worse and it tells me that much of my weight loss is real weight loss. Today will be the start of a new cycle, starting with a fast of as long as possible to cleanse my gut and clear my palate. Once again I need to hide or if need be destroy anything that looks tempting in the house. Out of sight out of mind and just water. Time to get back to the plan.

On Sunday night I made a new veggie tray and that is about all I want to eat. However I am allowing myself the occasional bean dip. I will have to get the recipe from the wife and add it here later because it is addictive and the ingredients aren't too bad.

Day Seven:

Our campaign has gotten off to a strong start but on Tuesday, day five I have officially hit the muck. There is little room to loose easy pounds, my gut is clean and my waterweight is ideal. The good news is that I feel great with a noticable loss of puffiness in my face and a free and lean feel to my torso. My chin is less theoretical and my wife and son both commented on how much better my snoring has become. The bad news is that my weight is only down to 219. Twelve pounds of net loss in five days may seem swell but the German army felt swell at the gates of Stalingrad. From here on in the pounds will come off by the ounces and the temptations will have far more disasterous results. This is time for dietary trench warfare. I have fifteen more days to conquer eight more pounds but the road looks very rocky.

Because I did keep my consumption low yesterday I have to look at what I ate and analyze what hurt me. I can think of two culprits; first the infamous bean dip which, with chips, is loaded with salt that may have caused my water to spike. Secondly, I had a tall glass of wine before bed. It was dry and seemed innocent enough but alchohol combined with sugar can be a wicked potion. Note to self; lay off the grape and give the bean dip to the neighbors..

Day Eight:

Tuesday was hard and Wednesday looks to be hard as well because I had a sick child at home to tend to. This means no getting out of the house when the appetite starts to kick into high gear. It means making chicken noodle soup with buttered bread. It means going to the refrigerator three times every hour for juice or snacks or something. This all puts your stomach in the line of fire.

I ate half of my veggie tray on Tuesday. Dinner was baked chicken with a brocholli stirfry mix. I am pretty certain that I set a personal record for vegetables in one day. Overall I did a good job of avoiding fats, carbs and chocolate syrup but I did eat a tremendous volume of food and liquids. Thus when I weighed in on Wednesday morning I was immediately disappointed to see 219 pounds again.

Wednesday is looking like a similar situation with now two children at home with a cold.
I am not going to shot for a fullblown fast as it is not feasible but I am hopeful that this can be a productive two days if I look at it strategically. Consuming so much fiber with so much water and a lot of salt (soy sauce and remember the bean dip?) has caused my gut to refill even though I am not consuming many calories. I am feeling rather puffy and sluggish to confirm the belief that I am retaining more than bad memories. If I eat similarly today I would expect a similarly disappointing weigh in Thursday however I will have the entire day without kids so I will be well situated to fast all day.

I predict a 218 weight Thursday with a more impressive 216 Friday. That would put me at a net loss of fifteen pounds the morning of day ten. Projecting your results and your success will get you over bad days when the diet seems to betray you.


Day Nine:

I could have put my weight down as 217 lbs this morning as that was the median score of seven tries. My scale is not 100% accurate but none are so I always look for a concencess decision and then take a poll, much like Congress. However today I am going to go with 218 as my official poundage. That was the highest number and the one that hit most often. The moral of this paragraph is that these dailies don't have any importance except to cheer you, or prod you, on to lower lows. Since I have not lost thirteen pounds on a diet since taking off the baby weight of my son seven years ago (it was a bear of a sympathetic pregnancy) I have reason to embrace this new low. I also expected 218 lbs as recently as yesterday so this validates my wisdom. Most importantly, after a couple rough days, today should be a great loss day and Fridays number will be the same regardless of what I report today.

Thursday should, rather, will, be a great loss day for a couple reasons; primarily stemming from the fact that both of my children will be in school all day. I don't have any 'real' work to do so I can address the shaggy situation of both mine and my parent's lawns. Actually my parents definition of a shaggy yard is my definition of an exquisite yard. If their yard doesn't look like Augusta National the first day of the Masters Tournament they consider it shaggy. If mine looks like the wetlands of Lake Okeechobee the first morning of the BassMasters Classic I figure it's borderline shaggy. Regardless, I am going to tackle both lawns today. This will not only give me much needed exercise, it will also keep me out of the house most of the day. One place I have yet to put a refrigerator on is the lawn. It's an idea though.

Day Ten:

Friday A.M. Weigh-in: 217 pounds. I have dropped another pound and now am at a net loss of fourteen at the 45% mark. With eleven days I feel confident that I will be able to meet my goals and have my best diet since the Clinton administration. Todays weight would have been better if an old friend of my wife hadn't sabotaged me. I had maintained a great day, getting to 7 o'clock in the evening on a few slices of balony and a couple pickles. Then my wife came home from my daughters' ballet class carrying a huge tin tray. It contained a Lebanese treat called Mujudra (probably misspelled) comprised of lentel beans, rice, carmelized onions and butter. Okay, at the beginning of this journal I explained that rice is a standard component of any diet. However, glazed in butter and beans even the most innocent rice becomes a caloric nightmare. I swore I wouldn't eat any, then I took a bite, and then another and... well, let's leave it that I didn't have a good evening diet wise but my palate had a great time.

Friday night will be difficult as well because my wife is having a joint candle/pampered chef party. You know those parties where women congregate under the guise of buying stuff and then proceed to eat appetizers and drink wine spritzers all night. I will be here so I will eat and I will drink and I am not going to resist having a good time surrounded by drunk women. If I can avoid eating more than a pickle all day I may still see a loss in the morning but I doubt it.



Day Eleven:

The party was worse than I thought, the food was rich and the wine was flowing and the net result was a pound gained. With my weigh up to 218 you might think I would be motivated with the new day. Fat chance. My four year old daughter wanted to go to breakfast at the “House Of Lard”, aka, Crackerbarrel. Good luck finding a loss Sunday, but I do have a plan. We have a babysitter and will be seeing the final Star Wars movie tonight. Thus it is possible that after a disasterous breakfast I may be able to avoid any proximity to tempting food all day and deep into the night. It is a plan.

Day Twelve:

I survived the Crackerbarrel breakfast and weighed in at 218 Sunday. Again I don't really intend to diet, just not go crazy. The best news is that i talked my wife out of making a big Sunday dinner. Unfortunately for the kids that means I will be cooking.

Day Thirteen:

Monday saw another 218 pounds and I have officially gone back into diet mode. By my logic I must have a lot of food built up in my system so I see getting down to 215 within two days. That would leave me six days to net the last four pounds. This won't be easy, the key will be activity. A lot is made of exercise but any activity, even if it's cleaning the garage, burns calories. The key is to do things all day that not only burn calories but keep you out of the house and away from the kitchen.

Day Fourteen:

This morning I am 216 pounds for the first time in years. Not that I am at a life changing stage but I feel like I've accomplished something and I am proud. That pride fills me up better than a six egg omelet. That pride will carry me through the last seven days and 5 lbs. I treated myself to a big cup of flavored coffee this morning and I don't imagine I will have any difficulty fasting most of the day. Perhaps more significant than the number on the scale is the one real difference I see in my appearance; I have a chin, defined and sexy. My face is five years younger. If you aren't fasting right now you should be, it is intoxicating.

Now is a great time to exercise but not the way you might have thought. Aerobic exercise is tremendously important at this stage because your body knows it is running short on supplies and it will try to slow down to conserve. As much as we yell at our stomach; “burn the fat, go for the fat!” our bodies look at the fat in our bodies like the Federal government looks at the Strategic Oil Reserve, only to be touched in dire emergency. Your body will actually attack muscle tissue before it will go for the fat. There are biological reasons for this frustrating phenomenon but the evolutionary cause is simple, if a caveman hurt his foot in a fall, he might not be able to track down a meal for a month. That fat surplus was the last sustainance for many a caveman, many a mammal for that matter. To overcome this dietary dilemma daily exercise is vital. Exercise forces the body to repair stressed muscles and repair will trump fat supplies.

Whether you work at home like me or in an office the big problem with aerobic exercise is that it is, admit it, a shameless waste of time and effort. A thousand step classes isn't going to get anything accomplished beyond my butt so why bother? Here's a novel thought, don't bother. Would you believe cleaning burns as many calories as light aerobics? Yes it does. Would you believe walking around the neighborhood with your child on your shoulders burns more calories than jogging? Yes it does. Would you believe washing your wifes' car will not only burn calories but get you more, better sex (which burns a ton of calories as well)? Absolutely.

Day Fifteen:

I am officially on a roll. Day fifteen, Wednesday, sees my weight at 215 pounds, sixteen lbs down and I can feel it. I am starting to notice fat disappearing from my my chest which also no longer rolls under my arms. My “love handles” are now almost gone completely to my astonishment. XL shirts that used to require a stretch periodically to keep comfortable are now draping loosely on me. Not to blow my own horn but...HONK, HONK, HONK!!

Tuesday wasn't neccesarily a good diet day. I fasted through the afternoon but after dinner (some humus and mediteranean veggie salad on a pita) I got sidetracked by a couple glasses of dry wine (maybe 'several' would be more accurate). As I've written before the devil in liqour lies in the sideaffects, one of which is insane munchies. However I circumvented the worst damage by going back to my old standby; the veggie tray. It is actually better for your diet to pick all evening on brocholli, mushrooms and peppers with dip than to not eat at all. The veggies use more calories to digest than they impart to you so they are a net loss food plus they keep your GastroIntestinal Tract busy so you don't feel weak or hungry. Most importantly it messes up your body chemistry when you don't have anything in your gut, the body wants to shut down while the brain insists you get food if you have to kill a pet to get it.

Recently I stocked up my kitchen for my 'stretch run' and I brought in my secret weapon. LaChoy Chow Mein may be the atom bomb of weight loss. An entire can (two cans actually if you aren't familiar) heated up without rice is only about two hundred calories. That is two very big helpings of meat, gravy and oriental veggies that, when eaten with a big glass of water, will fill up the most ravenous stomach. More importantly it fills the need occasionally to sit down and eat a real, cooked meal until you can't eat anymore. I haven't needed to use it yet but it is there in my kitchen, out on the counter, beckoning me to; “Break In Case Of Emergency”.

Day Sixteen:

Slow going today as I weighed in at 215pounds again. You can't get frustrated at this point if you don't see improvement. Your salt intake from one day to the next can make a big difference in your water weight. Yesterday, due to circumstances I ate more carbs than I normally would so I may have digested more efficiently than otherwise.

Low carb diets are all the rage but they can be very difficult and the results are spotty. The problem people run into is that they end up binging on proteins assuming that they won't digest. However, unless your body is in a deep state of “ketosis” or simply put, starved of carbs for at least three days, you do digest fats and proteins. The best thing to do is both carb and fat watch. Keeping your fats down will protect you from the diet busters like sausages or baked goods. Meanwhile keeping your carbs down will protect you from the 100 calorie sandwich on the 300 calorie bun while making your proteins harder to digest.

Yesterday, I mixed a breaded, fried chicken breast with a couple perogies. The result was zero weight loss on a day that I worked hard dieting. Let that be a lesson.

Day Seventeen:

214 pounds on Friday morning. With four more weigh ins and three more pounds to go I look to be on track, however the train could come off the track soon. It is a long, four day Memorial Day weekend which will be spent with family. I wish I had a plan for this but I don't. I just hope that by keeping my portions small and focusing on veggies I can maintain the loss I have achieved an find one strong day in the bunch. I may have to fast all day before the final weigh in but I will hit my goal of twenty pounds in twenty days.


Day Eighteen:

Friday was difficult but I woke up to another 214 pound weigh in Saturday morning. I was actually shocked to not have gained. Friday started off fatter than usual since my wife was off work and the family ate breakfast together. While the rest of the clan filled up on pancakes I opted for a large portion of sliced ham with two scrambled eggs served with a spicy brown mustard. I continued to attack the ham for lunch but dinner was the real crisis. After my daughter starred in a lavish number put on by the four year old ballet ensemble at the local high school auditorium we took the grandparents and kids to a family restaurant and I opted for the salad bar. Now a salad bar is to a salad what a strip club is to runway modeling. Bad enough that I finished a faux salad with a cup of chilli, I proceeded to finish my (now sleeping on my lap) daughters' pancakes and my wifes super-burger. My feeding frenzy left me guilty, but I had been so good so long I rationalized. Of course rationalization doesn't fix the scale for you the next day.

Lately I have been losing a pound every two days so it will be interesting to find out if my eating habits can hold up on a holiday weekend. Boy did I pick the wrong weekend to finish my diet out on.

Day Nineteen:

You can imagine the shock on my face Saturday morning when I looked at the scale and again saw 214 pounds. To have maintained the same weight after all that I had eaten Friday validated the efforts that I had made. If I sound a little goofy let me explain. My diet had gotten off to such a rapid start because I basically fasted for the first couple days. This emptied my gastro-intestinal tract of most of my food stores and a lot of excess water. Thus an eight pound loss on day one was more the result of lossing the past three days of meals than losing any fat. With this store now empty the subseqient loss obviously did come from fat because I could see the difference in my face, chest and torso but the fear always resided in me that I was one big meal away from shooting back up those initial eight pounds of filler. Thus coming in at a solid 214 with plenty of filler in me is a real accomplishment. I am going to enjoy the rest of this holiday weekend and trust that my shrunken stomach and better eating habits will keep me from disaster.

Of course disaster might have occurred on Saturday evening. After we took in a movie with the kids I decided to take the family to our favorite Italian restaurant for a treat. I had my favorite dish, liguini with red clam sauce. Now clams are a good option on a diet but smothered in rich (read; oily) tomato sauce and pasta it's a killer dish. Off course it came with a crusty Italian bread that literally steamed from the inside. Even the salad was deadly with crumpled blue cheese garnishing full-fat french dressing. Amazingly however I found myself having 70% of my entree wrapped to go as I just wasn't able to eat anymore. This is the benefit of conditioning your stomach to enjoy being empty.

Day Twenty:

Unbelievably I weighed in at 213 this morning. I will not go into details about my emotions only to express that I am in total disbelief. Sunday was not a great diet day but it was busy and staying active keeps you away from dietary demons. Really I don't know what happened by I will take it. Of course I have a memorial day picnic to go to today so I am crossing my fingers.

Day Twentyone:

Everything was on the line Memorial Day. I needed to drop two pounds to hit my goal of twenty pounds in twenty days. The key was simple, starvation and dehydration. Midday I had my first non-water sustainance; a glass of dry red wine. The picnic turned out to be a blessing in that I sweated like a pig and simply stayed away from the food completely. There was a veggie tray and I spent about an hour over that toward the end of the day. I went to bed early because I knew that I would succumb to leftovers if I stayed up past eleven. My stomach was ready to eat my liver when I went to bed on Day Twenty.

Okay, I worked the weigh in for all it was worth. By noon I figured there was nothing left I could pass without surgery and if I mowed the lawn again it would go bald. Again I did the median of seven weigh ins and the final talley was....212.

Well, if you've read this far I'm wasn't going to lie to you. Still I'll take a ninteen pound loss and chock it up to experience. Since that diet I have fasted one day a month. It is actually very easy if you plan out the day carefully. Drop the kids off at school or with your parents and go shopping . Then hit the golf course around noon when you can really work up a sweat. By the time you get off the course you will be too nauseous to eat solid food. Rehydrate and go pick up your kids. When you get home don't make a dinner, just make a small pizza that the kids and wife can eat and go play on the computer while they eat. Before you know it the day is over, your colon is happy and you are back at fighting weight.









-3-Never clearly state that the kitchen has become Daddy's domain. The first reaction will be immediate shrinkage of your “privates”.


When I got married I knew I had closed the biggest deal of my life. Mommy was and is beautiful just to look at. Like most men, looks and sensuality were all I really noticed about her at first and being incredibly shallow that probably would have been enough to get me to the alter. However by the time I said, “I do”, I knew that she was so much more. She was funny, she was smart, she loved football and even boxing if she recognized the fighter. However when our honeymoon flight touched down and we settled into domestic tranquility the last thing I expected was that she could cook. No, I would have to be the chef in the household.

In the four years that led up to our nuptuals Mommy had never shown the ability to peel a banana let alone cook a meal. She lived with her mother and never failed to take advantage of that fact. As we began our life together however something revolutionary occurred. My wife of mere days who had never boiled water walked into the kitchen and prepared a wonderful Italian sunday dinner with pasta, fried chicken, garlic bread and cauliflower the only way I have ever been able to digest it. This first repast from my wife wasn't just a revelation, it was addictive. Perhaps it was Sicilian genetics, more likely it was twenty-five years of watching her mother cook four hours a day. Either way the 9.5 that I married became the perfect 10 when I found out she could cook too.

As with most newlyweds we ate out a lot and sandwiches were more than acceptable dinner fare. When children came dining became even more informal. We both worked through the boys first four years and the Girls first eight months so who “prepared” dinner usually fell to who made it home first. Still, when time permitted a big dinner, Mommy was the queen of the kitchen.

A tiny part of the economic decision for me to stay home was that with a fulltime adult in the house we could eat homecooked meals everyday. In addition to keeping money that would otherwise have gone to McDonald's, we had both grown up in families where everyone got together once a day for dinner, regardless. Thus I dedicated myself to having food on the table every evening. Mind you, as long as the kids ate good Mommy and Daddy could be happy with a few cocktail shrimp with some potato chips and dip on the side.

I now do about 90% of the cooking in the house and even when Mommy cooks I do 90% of the chopping and cutting because it makes me ill to watch her cutting left-handed, every peel looks like step one of Hari-Kari. However even after three years I am careful not to take liberties with Mommy's kitchen. I am only renting it for a time. No putting essentials on the top shelf where only I can reach, no replacing appliances, large or small without consultation. A woman wants to know that regardless of the current circumstances that she is still the queen of the kitchen. For those of you who don't get the message, imagine if your wife decided to go into the doll business and she moved into your garage. When you came home from work the next day all of your tools where cleaned and relegated to the basement closet. All your bolts and fasteners were filed in tupperware out of reach behind mothball scented hats on the closet shelf. Your collection of slightly used caulk is gone with the trash. So what if you haven't “Gone Fishin'” since the Reagan administration, you want that plaque on your wall in your garage. Even if you have to wait until retirement to clean it, that garage is your birthright...as a man. That kitchen is Mommy's birthright and one of these days she is going to kick you out of there.

Respecting antiquated boundaries is important sometimes in a relationship. Mommy has to fight herself everyday when she leaves the house to hold a job no woman on TV held in her childhood. As hard as my career girl can appear on the outside on the inside she misses not being June Cleaver. Part of my job is to soften that disappointment.















-4-The Golden Rule of childraising

Since science precludes the possiblity of absolutes even the most ridiculously obvious is termed a “theory”. Religion on the other hand deals only in absolutes. So any religious theory, however ridiculous, is a “Fact” as long as one person believes it. That said I firmly believe in this little know theological “fact”; There was a foreword chiseled onto the stone tablets of Ten Commandments fame. It contained the “Golden Rule of childraising” and it read thus:

(King James version) “Thou shalt put the children to bed at an early hour so the mother and the father can have some grown up time togetherith and Ye shall let them cry it out until they slept through 'til the sunrise.”

Of course as soon as Moses descended from the Mount he was confronted with angry mothers who decried him as a cruel horrible man who shouldn't even have children if he would let them suffer in the dark. Surely they wailed, the children will grow up to hate them if they did anguish so.

Moses insisted that he was just the messenger and that they should leave him out of it and take it up directly with YaWay. He clarified that although he didn't have kids he understood the plight of parents who did because all they did was mope around all day from exhaustion because they never slept through the night due to the fruit of their loins' insomnia. He expounded that men were sleeping with their slaves because the woman never had time for them or “urges for the plow” as they said. The youth of the land would grow up with warlike tempers and bad school habits. Woman letting their infants sleep in their beds not only formed unnatural bonds that really cut fathers out of the loop, they also were smothering them to death at an alarming rate.

The women would still have none of this, decrying him as a Philistine and a Gammorite. Moses was ready to do the staff-to-a-snake trick when he spotted a golden calf that the mothers had insisted the men build for the children's play area.

“Lo, see how you do spoil the brats. When you give them everything they appreciate nothing. When you sauve their every pain you stiffle their every pleasure, when you provide succor for their every want you make them blind to their real needs. Most of all you have a divorce rate over 50%...is that working for you!”

Enraged Moses hurled the stone tablets onto the Golden Calf with such force that they did break. Eventually the pieces were placed into a carefully constructed “Ark of the Covenant” made from the Golden Calf itself which proved to be a powerful weapon against a variety of gentiles up to and including Nazis.

Most people are not aware of the “Foreword of the Covenant” because Moses instructed all the men in the tribe not to bring it up again lest they would have to view the promised land from the wrong side of the river Jordan along with him.








I need to bring the pacifier to adults.

If I ever get back into the business world I think I need to bring the pacifier to adults. Not as a kinky toy but to serve the same purpose it does with children.

My first child, the Boy, rejected the pacifier from the start. He would not buy into the concept of “pacification” and Mommy and Daddy paid the price. He was by no means a cholicky baby but every evening around dinner time he would begin to fuss, then cry and then scream hysterically for two hours. It was quite the heartbreaker and it certainly explains Post Natal Depression. The timing of his outbursts was what really pushed our buttons. After the birth, until Mommy went back to work, either my mother or Mommy's mom would be at the house all day to help with the Boy while I worked. During this time he was by all accounts (I was rarely there back then) the perfect child. Giggling, chortling and pooping at all the right times. Then around 5:00PM the grandmothers would leave and shortly after I would arrive. At this time everyday for two months the Boy would begin to turn from angel-boy to devil-baby.

Now I realize that my presence or the grandma's absence didn't have any causial effect on my son's transformation to the dark side but it certainly felt that way. I know it was nothing personal, strictly professional screaming and ranting but Mommy and I couldn't help but take it personally. In fact it was probably the constant overfeeding by a Nunny or a Mimmy that would cause a late afternoon gas bubble to lodge itself on our baby's last nerve but that was too sacreligious to consider. No, in the final rundown it was obviously a terrible lack of mothering skills on Mommy's part and a horrible Edephal hatred of his father that threw him into his evening rages. Finally we found that by rocking him with several Gs of force in a football hold could we “pacify” him. This rocking was good excersize but tedious after an hour or so.

Of course the Boy grew out of this period by the time he was three months and I now realize that it was literally a physical transformation that accomplished it. After years of efforting growth in our children I have come to realize that most growth is preordained by a kids' genes. Little colons straighten out and allow gas to go out the correct end easier which makes a cranky child happy. We are merely nurses administering nutrients and comfort to facilitate the journey.

This isn't to say that Nature trumps Nurture in importance. Love and contact are vital to opening up little brains. You have five years to develop your childs' personality so it's important to start shaping it in a happy and curious manner from the moment of birth. However most of the bad things we encounter are not the product of a growing “bad seed” but of physical discomfort due to rampant growth. If you don't keep that in mind you will become bitter and thin skinned, which will affect your relationship with your children when their brains do become more responsible.

Unlike my son, my daughter latched onto the pacifier, aka “the bink” right from the start. She loved her bink with a passion and when she didn't have it you got told just how much. She didn't suck on it non-stop but when she was in discomfort she wanted it and she worked it. Whenever a crisis would arrise rapid application of the bink was usually an immediate remedy. Mommy and I were so enamoured of the bink that we probably kept it around too long. I think we only stopped when the Girl verbalized, “Mommy, Daddy, I obviously don't need this pacifier anymore. Could we please let it go?”

Perhaps we shouldn't ever let our binks go. How many relationships have been soured because someone ran into you on the wrong day? How many bad decisions have I made just because I had an irritable bowl at the time? Would I not have been better off sucking on a bink and just blinking for a few minutes?

Next time your boss charges into your office offer him a “Binky”, since alchohol and cigarettes are no longer hip in offices this may be the next best ice breaker.











Daddy has to be the master of distraction. Honesty and discussion are lossing propositions with three year olds

Daddy has to be the master of distraction. Slight of hand and downright fibbery are invaluable tools in child management. This is perhaps the one area in which men are more naturally gifted than woman. It really does come down to Oprah versus Dr. Phil.

Woman are by nature honest and communicative (see what a clumsy adjective I just used, a woman would have a far better way of expressing this because they care to express this). Honesty and discussion are lossing propositions with three year olds.

(cut to housewife explaining to crying baby who is tearing pages out of wedding album)

Mommy; “Sweetie this has tremendous intrinsic value to mommy and someday it will to you too”). Okay, that is a winning argument and it wins without any risk of phycological damage. Unfortunately the Frontal Lobe of a three year old, where moral and consciencious evaluations are made is still applying for a building permit. Remember that you can keep it simple without leaving any psychological scars.

(cut to Daddy pointing to the other side of the room while firmly grabbing the wedding album)

Daddy; “Look sweetie, a bunny”. Some might argue that this could teach a child to blurr reality, to develop an unwarranted skeptisism or maybe even believe that wild rodents dwell in their homes. I, however, usually find that by the time they finish looking for the bunny they have moved on to looking for candy.

The “Look, it's a bunny” trick certainly is a one-trick pony but like most ponies it can still hold the attention of a toddler up until at least four years old. After a while you may have to sell the concept a little harder, “Look, it's a bunny. I mean it this time!”. This enhanced version should buy you at least another year of success, however now you are putting your professional credibility on the line so you've got to start laying the groundwork for stage three. In stage three you go very broad, “Oh my God, look, it's a giant bunny and it wants to ......tickle your feet!” At stage three “bunny” becomes an inside joke and while they realize you are fibbing they will still drop whatever they are doing to pretend to look for the bunny even though they know they are merely mining rare attention from Daddy. This can stretch the weakest of distractions well into the elementary school years.
















-4-The greatest thing about Daddy being home is being able to teach the boy to play baseball. Fortunately at five years old he can't tell that Daddy never could play baseball.


When I was a kid the greatest fear I had was that someone would toss me a ball. If not catching a ball could be quantified and qualified I would probably have been the greatest non-catcher in history. I always assumed this was a result of an incredibly unatheletic nature but as I have grown I realized that I have always wanted to be successful atheletically. Why would I want to succeed at something I am so predisposed against. This torment of my soul never found resolution until I reached that horrible crossroads: my son reached tee-ball age and he needed to learn to catch.

Culture tells us that the greatest thing about Daddy being home is being able to teach the boy to play baseball. Fortunately at five years old he can't tell that Daddy never could play baseball. Son gets a glove and Daddy gets a glove and then Daddy prays that he can be better than his son until his son no longer wants to catch with Daddy.

I never had a baseball mit as a kid, I don't know why, we weren't poor. I fumbled with my big brothers mitt occasionally but it was too big and I could barely hold onto it let alone a ball. This certainly cemented my notion that I was a born spectator. Mommy was born into a baseball family and was a natural infielder so she bought the Boy the best glove we could find. The first day I caught a ball with my son I wore a synthetic youth glove that he had been given at a Pittsburgh Pirates game. It barely fit but I didn't figure it would matter. When we tossed the ball it mostly bounced off of his hands and I was happy to see him put his mitt in front of the ball. I however was surprised when I caught the first ball he threw to me. It was not a comfortable feeling like riding a bike, however it happened. It was the first time in my life I caught a ball in a mitt and I was only forty one years old.

The Boy has yet to pick up a bat or a glove or a ball and know exactly what to do with it, however with prompting and patience I have taught him to hit a ball well and even catch a ball passibly. He doesn't seem to have the reactions to be a shortstop but he isn't bad in the field for a seven year old.

I have to keep these memories in my shirtpocket for ready-reference when I feel like I've underacheived in life. My father always did all he could to be a good provider for his family but apparently he never had time to put on a glove and pretend that he could catch with me. It's okay because in his generation he didn't have the option to be at home. Since I have that option my obligation is to make sure I have no regrets to pass on to my kids.
















The girl has mastered twisting Daddy around her finger.

The girl has mastered twisting Daddy around her finger.

The highlight of her career as “Daddy's girl” had to be when she looked at me with hypnotic cyncerity and said; “Don't worry Daddy, I'll clean up the dog poop if that makes you feel better.”

Time to work on the downpayment on her Corvette graduation present.












Be careful to hide the “Apple Jacksons”


One of Daddy's challenges has been to wrestle the grocery shopping duties from Mommy. It has been a classic bureaucratic turf war with big budgets and big authority at play. With diametrically opposite shopping philosophies this has not been an easy struggle but we've reached a peaceful and productive accord.

For years we have shopped together. We are blessed to have a grocery store with an in-house daycare so Saturday afternoon shopping was often the closest Mommy and Daddy got to a date. The free, in-house daycare is such a phenomenal attraction I am surprised every retail outlet doesn't have them, I would break my toilet on purpose if a plumbing supply store featured a babysitter. Ikea also has kiddee rooms and look at how well they've done.

I decided that it was time to adjust our way of shopping on a particularly tight month when my little business wasn't bringing in any money. Our weekly grocery shopping was regularly coming in over a hundred and fifty dollars. This seems so inconsequential when you cash a six thousand dollar commission check but when there is no relief in sight that buck-fifty looks like the world. Mommy could well afford the expense but Daddy saw that money wacked up into a weeks groceries, a half tank of gas and lunch and golf with a friend. Thus I took over the food budget but not without a fight.

Nothing more exemplifies the differences between Mommy and Daddy's personalities than our shopping habits. I find any kind of commodity a nuisance expense. Clothes, cars, food, these are all commodities that I need and charish but the return on investment has to be taken into account. When I look at a car I see how much it costs per year to own it. I throw away my clothes when they get worn, not when I need the closet space. As for food, I look at what goes in my mouth, not what package that food came in. Mommy on the other hand is more concerned with what buying a commodity means than what it is. Her priority is to feel good about buying something rather than feeling good about having something. The thrill of the hunt in worth more to Mommy than the object bought.

This hunting philosophy means that when shopping for food the label is far more important than the price. Amounts should always err on the high side. Envision gourmet rather than practical fare. The result of this mindset can be tremendously expensive. I realize that many men are afflicted with the same shopping habits and if money is no object in your marriage this is unneccesary advice but since money is a factor in 95% of marital disputes here are some tips;

Don't do all your shopping once a week. Stop a store when it is on your way and zip through real fast just buying those items that are on sale or really necessary. This way you get to stop at two or three stores each week getting the best deals while only spending twenty or thirty dollars a stop.

Cereal is cereal. Because it is one of the most basic of foods it is also one of the hardest to mess up. Sugary off-brands are easier for the kids to detect because shapes and colors are so strongly branded; hearts better be red, clover better be clover. If the wife or kids have a problem with generics that save you two or three dollars a box, humor them. Save a genuine box and simply swap out fresh bags of “Apple Jacksons” when it's empty. This goes with all generics, some don't work as good as others but the simpler the commodity the better the risk. Bleach is bleach right?

Limit the lunch meat. Sandwiches aren't very good for you anyway but if you are going to eat them make them sparingly. Grocery store lunchmeat rarely will stay fresh for more than four days so instead of buying a pound, just get a half. You can run out to the store if you are really Jonesing for bologna on Thursday.

Be creative with meats. If you see London Broil on sale for two dollars a pound get a big one and whack it up into a few fillets, marinate it in teriaki sauce and freeze. That is serious steak on demand. When you go to fry chicken breast slice them to half or third thickness while they are partially frozen. You will become addicted to these cutlets while getting more meals out of the same bird.

Soda is bad for kids, it makes them fat, hyper and it rots their teeth, otherwise it's great. Diet soda is bad for adults, it gives them sugar cravings, heartburn and the carbonation rots their bones. Put a plug in the pop. A box of 200 Green Tea bags and a bottle of lemon juice will make about thirty gallons of iced tea sweetened with a tiny dose of real sugar. Just throw 7 bags into a clean milk gallon, fill with hot tap water and set in the sun for a few hours.

Make your own cookies and muffins. I've already turned you on to the Greatest Cookie Dough, now here is the recipe for a dozen giant chocolate muffins; mix a box of generic chocolate cake mix with a stick of margarine, a tablespoon of vegetable oil and a half cup of quick oatmeal. Fifteen minutes later at four hundred degrees you've got seriously great muffins.

Focus on the kids. Don't get ingredients for complicated adult food that is going to rot in the refrigerator. Be sure your cart has a couple family meals laid out in it but don't aspire to Chicken Kiev unless you're cooking it that evening. Throwing good food into the trash isn't just wasteful, it cost money too. Same thing with fruits and veggies, if you are going to buy them prepare them that evening. Cut up the fruit and put it out to be eaten. Make a veggie tray. True story: fruits and vegetables refer to the crisper as “the Morgue”.


-3-Daddy's helpful hints; When you find a good thing, ride it into the ground.

Daddy's helpful hints; When you find a good thing, ride it into the ground.

(Daddy looking at a cake box)

“Hmm, grandma says if add a stick of butter, an egg and a spoon of water to cake mix you get great cookie dough. Wanna' try it baby?”

Two weeks later; “Hey gang, it's cookies for dinner again!”









-1-One of the biggest falacies in life is that men are better negotiator with tradesmen.

One of the biggest falacies in life is that men are better negotiator with tradesmen. This is still true outside of the home. However inside the domicile woman have the upperhand in most negotiations.

Men do go out of their way to out manuever woman in the workplace. Most garages are specifically designed to scare the purse off a woman. It is not just chance that underneath every three inch stack of Hot Rod and Outdoor Life magazines lies a flea market end table lacquered with a quarter inch of axle grease and cigarette ash. It is not chance that all garage bathroom decors are inspired by “Silence of the Lambs”. Every nuianse of the typical automotive garage waiting area is designed to inspire fear and intimidation in the woman who dares to enter and if it works on the occasional metrosexual man, that's gravy.

The housewife has booby-trapped her home for negotiations as well. A handyman coming in for any job that isn't an emergency is wading into deep and dangerous waters. A housewifes first advantage is her schedule; she realizes that she can trap a tradesman in her basement literally all day with new questions and querries. Every bid can be negotiated ad naseum when time isn't money. Every lemonade and brownie dulls the male senses more until below cost seems logical and same day turnaround seems far too long to wait.

A housedad on the other hand is still stuck on the idea that hes time is worth money and his goal from the moment a contractor arrives is to get him out the door. Offering a cola might be okay but sitting down at the kitchen table and sharing cookies is going way too far down the Yellow Brick Road. Looking cheap and asking for a better number is also difficult when you are trying to give the impression that you are either working from home or for some reason don't need to work due to brilliant invention or investment.

I eventually came to the reality that I should let my wife do the home negotiating but not before I paid dearly. Three times a repairman convinced me the ancient “Lady Kenmore” washer was truly one of the great machines of lore and that once we replace the out-of-stock, insanely overpriced whatziz in question she would last forever. Three times we got six months of happy service from m'Lady before the next breakdown.

Finally after three fixes in two years totalling over three hundred dollars we retired “Lady Kenmore”. I felt a sense of sadness as she road off on the garbage truck. It was kind of like watching Frodo sailing off to Avalon at the end of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I know she is in a better place where the spin cycle always works and there is always plenty of liquid softener.













The Emotional Afterword

Perhaps it is because they literally carry them for near ten months but woman certainly have a deeper love for their children from birth.

Men on the other hand develop this unconditional love with proximity.

For the stay at home Dad this can be a tough period but realize and charish the fact that many men go through life never having the time to learn this love.

When you hug and kiss your child for no reason in the middle of the day remember that you can't find this satisfaction at any happy hour with any coworkers.









-Synopsis of Contents

4-Ambition has always been by greatest weakness in that I have none. I honestly had to use a dictionary to look up the proper spelling. The last time I was the absolute best at something was in 8th grade on Jr. High Quiz. After that I had peaked, there was no need for me to study hard or work hard because I was teenage Jesus and everything would come naturally. Oddly enough I married another alumnus of Jr. High Quiz. Unlike me she seeths amibition. Perfection is her only goal, excellence will be tolerateed to paraphrase a framed poster she actually brought home.

-4-Forget the Martha Stewart to-do list. Trying to be perfect is the recipe for disappointment.

-4-Trouble with working from home. It's important for a man to pretend to be working from home. Women don't feel the need to work at home. Dr. Phil tells us that a homemaker works the equivalent of three jobs and housewives will tell you that one of those full-time jobs is explaining to her spouse the work she puts in. Tells man in suit while daughter hangs on sweatpants leg; “Yeah, I'm a mortgage broker...home office, it's great.”

-1-Different views on pop culture; Men think Julie Andrews was the villian in “The Sound Of Music”. The Colonel had those kids in tip-top shape before she arrived. (see kids lined up on stairs in liederhousen)

-1-Daddy's first day dropping off children at new school, dress slacks, tucked oxford shirt, day 30: shorts and a golf shirt, day 90: a stained tee and sweatpants with flip-flops.

-3-Daddy's first breakfast; “Hey kids, how about pancakes and sausage?”, day 90; (yells from bed) grab a piece of bread from the bread drawer kids, I'll get you some milk later.” Expand on the fifteen minute dinner, selection to presentation.

-3-When Daddy's worked and Mommy's stayed at home the man in the grey flannel suit still had duties to attend to when he wasn't making bacon. (cut to vision of June Cleaver telling Ward to take out the trash, clean out the garage and beat the Beaver) Well, under the new paradyme the girl in the grey flannel suit will often try to pick and choose options. (Cut to June Cleaver coming home from work and telling Ward that she's exhausted from shopping all lunch and he better get out the garbage, clean the garage and beat the Beaver)

-5-Women who stay home take over the finances, men who stay home feel ashamed to take money from the wife. Save yourself three years of turmoil, grow a set and take her paycheck. Pretend you're a pimp if it makes you feel more like a man.

-6-Trouble with keeping weight down. The kitchen is on the way to everywhere. Look in frig for a monkey wrench, take ice cream sandwich as consolation prize. Fasting is the manly way to maintain.

-4-(looking into camera) “By 6 o'clock, I am reduced to a crispy cookie of self doubt; I'll never have a real career again. My father will never respect me as a man if I'm not bringing home a paycheck. At least soon I'll get support and stability from my life-partner...” (Cut to wife standing at the door crying, throwing coat and purse on floor) Wife; “I can't believe my children are growing up without me. All I do is work all day, for what? All the housewives look at me like I'm a hooker.” (Both, in unison) “I'm such a failure.”

-3-Daddy's helpful hints; When you find a good thing, ride it into the ground. (Daddy looking at a cake box) “Hmm, grandma says if add a stick of butter, an egg and a spoon of water to cake mix you get great cookie dough. Wanna' try it baby?” Two weeks later; “Hey gang, it's cookies for dinner again!”

-1-Ode to a Potato.

-2-Your wifes fear that housewives will fantasize about stay-at-home dads are true. However the fantasies aren't what she imagined. (woman with stoller thinks while Daddy struggles with lawnmower); “Oh gawd, he probably empties the dishwasher.”

-2-You can't underestimate the value of a menstral cycle to being a homemaker. It allows a woman to exorcise all of her demons without remorse or pity during a precise and relatively predictable timeframe. Men who traditionally spend far more time away from home hunting bears don't need this release. However when forced to close proximity with all the ties that bind for a long time (over 48 hours) men have to resort to other antisocial outlets, often starting with beer and progressing to violence. Rule of thumb, create predictable mini-periods, just stay out of danger.

-2-A perfect example of irrational male temper. Daddy takes his kids to the pool on the first day of summer break.


-1-At one time woman probably peed upright just like men. However after spending a few generations picking up after husbands and children the female branch simple didn't have the energy to stand up for it anymore. It took me about a week to hit the wall. Sometimes you sit whenever you get the opportunity. This however has answered one of lifes most profound mysteries: why don't women pass gas in public? Because they do everytime they sit to pee. It's kind of a gastro-intestinal B.O.G.O.

-2-There are three simple sentences you need to be a girlfriend. Learning them early can save your marriage.

-3-Never clearly state that the kitchen has become Daddy's domain. The first reaction will be immediate shrinkage of your “privates”. The second reaction will be a profound saddness on Mommy's face that words won't erase.

-1-Careful when shopping. Mommy doesn't like anything generic. Remember to dump the “Apple Jacksons” into the brand name box. This will work until the kids start saying infront of mommy; “Daddy, why'd you buy funny fake Rice Crispy's today.

-1-You can't help watch daytime TV and the one issue that seems to come up on every 2.3 talk shows is weight consciousness and poor self image. These poor waifs who look like Kate Moss on The Zone Diet cry to Oprah because everyone they see on Elle Magazine is a size 0. Here's the secret girls, don't look at those men. Those men are put together by bitter women editors who see the youth going down the sink with their conceiler and gay designers; both whom want there woman looking like fourteen year old boys. Give these girls back issues of Biker Magazine or Playboy to see that real men like girls with curves.

-1-If I ever get back into the business world I think I need to bring the pacifier to adults. Not as a kinky toy but to serve the same purpose it does with children. Next time your boss charges into your office offer him a “Binky”, since alchohol and cigarettes are no longer hip in offices this may be the next best ice breaker.

-4-The greatest thing about Daddy being home is being able to teach the boy to play baseball. Fortunately at five years old he can't tell that Daddy never could play baseball. We just have to blame that on the fact that our father didn't stay home to raise his kids and hope that we can learn to catch the ball faster than the boy does.

-3-The girl has mastered twisting Daddy around her finger. The highlight of her career as “Daddy's girl” had to be when she looked at me with hypnotic cyncerity and said; “Don't worry Daddy, I'll clean up the dog poop if that makes you feel better.” Time to work on the downpayment on her Corvette graduation present.

-4-Perhaps it is because they literally carry them for near ten months but woman certainly have a deeper love for their children from birth. Men on the other hand develop this unconditional love with proximity. For the stay at home Dad this can be a tough period but realize and charish the fact that many men go through life never having the time to learn this love. When you hug and kiss your child for no reason in the middle of the day remember that you can't find this satisfaction at any happy hour with any coworkers.

-2-Daddy has to be the master of distraction. Honesty and discussion are lossing propositions with three year olds (cut to housewife explaining to crying baby who is tearing pages out of wedding album; “Sweetie this has tremendous intrinsic value to mommy and someday it will to you too”) Remember that you can keep it simple without leaving any psychological scars. (cut to Daddy telling the girl while grabbing the wedding album; “Look sweetie, a bunnie”)

-4-The Golden Rule of childraising chiselled into stone by Yaway as the foreword to the Ten Commandments (later edited and forgotten by generations of mothers crying; “oh, that's so harsh”): “Thou shalt put the kids to bed at an early hour so mommy and daddy can have some grown up time togetherith.”

-1-One of the biggest falacies in life is that men are better negotiator with tradesmen. Three times a repairman convinced me the ancient “Lady Kenmore” was truly one of the great machines of lore and that once we replace the out-of-stock, insanely overpriced whatziz in question she would last fore. Finally after three fixes in three years totalling over three hundred dollars we retired “Lady Kenmore” on the garbage truck to Avalon.


-5-“The Incredible Fifteen Minute Time Machine” When you get married the TV becomes the central conduit of most entertainment. Date nights every night become TV time on the coach every night. It's all economics; you turn your bartab into your mortgage. Once babied show up you are faced with the horrible fate of missing your eight o'clock shows while putting the kiddos to sleep. Somethings got to give and it better not be TV time. Remember that happy parents make happy kids, stressed out parents who give into their kids have spoiled, unhappy kids. The cure for this cunundrum is “The Incredible Fifteen Minute Time Machine”. Simply set the clocks in the house fifteen minutes fast and don't be proactive on teaching Jr. how to tell time. Once they catch on in kindergarten or first grade they'll be able to read their own bedtime stories and say prayers before eight, then you let them act like big kids and keep the light on for a half hour. You come up during a commercial break at eight thirty, kiss their sleeping angel faces and turn out the lights.

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