Time with my son.

When in the world is this flu junk going to go away?  It's been like 2,831 days and the entire population is still sick - what the heck?  What kind of mutant strain is this?  What kind of crappy scientific and medical services do we have at our disposal that we can't do something about it?  We're spending too much time studying the mating habits of bugs and not enough time making my life less painful.   

My daughter is the latest victim, and I stayed home most of this past week to take care of my one-and-a-half year old son, hoping that keeping the kids apart would keep him from catching it. (which, praise God, he did not). 

My son Logan likes to wake up at the toe-stubbingly dark hour of 5am every morning.  He's like an evil rooster or something, because as soon as he gains consciousness he starts screaming his head off...and it's usually before the sun comes up.  Perhaps he secretly delights in the misery of others, or maybe he just likes to get an early start on destroying everything of value in our house.  Regardless, he wakes up each day at around 5am and does not go back down until 8pm that night. 

This makes for a pretty long day, especially when the FREAKING TV BREAKS!  Usually as a parent you can get some small breaks during the day by giving them a popsicle to drip on your furniture and plopping them down to watch some new-fangled show on Nickelodeon (What is up with kids shows these days?  They're like a permanent acid trip...they'll have a blind dog with 5 ears dressed up in a cowboy outfit called "Mr. KadoozleFoozleFlam" rapping and battling alien cats and talking about having clean teeth and gums for like 45 minutes).  But with the TV out of commission, the entire day consisted of constant, never-ending pleas from Logan for me to "play" with him (which consists of him throwing solid metal Hot Wheels at my face and treating my manhood like a trampoline).      

Now I don't care how good of a parent you are or how much you love your children - after a while you need a change of pace.  I finally decided we needed to find something else to do.  

I thought we'd have a snack, and normally this would be fine...but the boredom and sleep deprivation and sore body parts had begun to affect my judgment.  I grabbed a chocolate pudding cup out of the fridge, and as I was headed to the drawer to get a spoon, I spotted a can of neglected Pringles potato chips on the counter.  I thought to myself  "Hey, I like stuff that's both sweet and salty...why not dip my Pringles in the pudding!  It'll be like chocolate covered pretzels!"  Logan momentarily stopped wailing on the cat to see what I was doing, and I think he was as surprised as I was.  Needless to say, it didn't turn out quite like I had hoped.  The chips busted inside the pudding cup and what I was able to get out didn't taste all that great.  I offered my son a bite, but he waved it away and told me "na-na-na-na-na" which is his way of saying "You can take that thing and shove it straight up your (baby curse word)"

The bad ideas continued...later on, he was playing with a small "laptop computer" toy that plays music.  For some reason, I thought it would be cute to teach him a little dance.  Now those of you who know me personally know that I DO NOT DANCE.  EVER.  I have plenty of rhythm, but it's like my legs are made of overcooked Rigatoni and can't move properly.  Anyway, we came up with a new dance called "The Lock" which is where you lift both your hands straight out in front of you and twist your wrists and hands back and forth like you're turning a key in a lock, and while you do this you have to squat down and then back up repeatedly.  As I watched my son do this dance over and over for the next 47.3 hours, I asked myself how badly he'd berate me after the first time he did this in front of a prospective girlfriend, thinking "Hey, my dad is a cool guy...no way he'd show me something unless it was totally rad!"  I grabbed his hands and tried to stop him from dancing, but it was no use...my son loved doing "The Lock" and would not be deterred by anyone or anything.  He simply pulled his hands free while shouting "na-na-na-na-na".

Then there was the time when I gave him on of my nephew's "lightsabers" to play with.  These things are basically plastic extendable baseball bats, and when my nephew (age 11, complete Star Wars nut) comes over we have duels with them.  Now there's nothing my son loves doing more than hitting people with stuff and watching their subsequent pained reactions, so these lightsabers were right up his alley.  I decided to let him play with one, and we spent a little while smacking them together.  And yeah, it was cute and all to hear him go "bam" when they knocked together...but after a while I wanted to take a break from playing and this unfortunately did not coincide with the young master's wishes.  I spent the next two hours being savagely beaten every time he wandered through the kitchen.  "LOGAN!  GIVE DADDY THAT LIGHTSABER!"  "Na-na-na-na-na..."

I bet when you read the title of this blog you thought I was going to get all sentimental.  "na-na-na-na-na."

On a totally unrelated matter, what the heck is up with the weather here in Alabama?  Saturday it snows and it's cold enough for the snow to stick...and then on Sunday it's almost 70 degrees outside?  COME ON!  Can't we at least get some consistency?  The weather always sucks down here, but can't it at least suck in some sort of organized fashion so we can plan our lives around it?