modern day dad

A short dad blog roundup.

Not much to write about this morning, but other dad bloggers do:

• AJ over at Thingamababy is on fire. He's got tons of new stuff, most notably a comprehensive roundup of sippy cup accessories,
• Poppa Large has a really good one-paragraph thought on what it feels like to be a new father.
• Greg from DaddyTypes has a mole in Design Within Reach that says the stuff in their "new" kids line is going to look very familiar.
• Eric over at More Diapers is looking for a house in and around Boston (and hitting his head against a wall in the process). $500K for one and a half bathrooms (four years ago) is the biggest reason we left Boston.
• And last but not least, Russ at the Daily Yak avoided a speeding ticket only through the grace of Jesus Christ.

Jack's Big Music Show

Has anyone else noticed how awesome Jack's Big Music Show on Noggin is? The show is about three puppets (Mary, Jack and his dog Mel) who have a band in a clubhouse behind Jack's house (Mel the dog plays the drums of course). They play songs, encourage kids to dance, and are visited by all kinds of non-puppet people. Some are musicians who come over to play music with them, and some are people like the "music fairy" who grants music wishes  The show kind of reminds me of the puppet/human interactions of Sesame Street (apparently two of the creators used to work on Sesame Street), combined with the wackiness of Pee Wee's Playhouse. The music is fun and playful without being annoying, and my Madame loves it (though she'll dance to anything, even the music on a freaking car commercial).

With a lot of average shows for preschoolers out there, it's great having one I don't mind sitting through.

Jack's Big Music Show [Noggin.com]
'Sesame Street' alums add zip to 'Jack's Big Music Show' [Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel]

Also on MDD -
Jack's Big Music Show sure is swell (11-02-2005)
Holiday gifts. Kids. Jack's Big Music Show. (12-01-2005)

Is that a monitor in your diaper?

I can't figure out if this is a good idea, or if it's something created to capitalize on hyper safety-conscious new parents. A South African company has recently developed the RespiSense - a small device that when put in a baby's diaper monitors breathing patterns. Then, if the monitor detects a 15 second pause in breathing, it will vibrate to stimulate the baby back into breathing. The claim is it will help to prevent "cot death" or as we call it, SIDS.

Their web site doesn't have any data on it's efficacy, or even a single testimonial from anyone in the medical field. Apparently they are beginning real testing now, but I'm surprised that they can sell it at all (I guess the rules in South Africa are different than here in the US). It will be interesting to see the results.

RespiSense Buzz for SIDS [Medgadget.com via transporttrends.com]

Intelligent nonsense.

With so many important things out there for open and honest debate, why are we (Americans) wasting time on proven scientific theory? As I'm sure you've heard, parents in a school district in Pennsylvania have mandated that a four paragraph statement be read by science teachers in biology class, saying that "intelligent design" is a legitimate alternative theory for the origin and evolution of life. Now there's a big court battle and it seems like all of America is debating something that isn't even worthy of debate (even The Daily Show did a whole week-long series of shows called "Evolution, Schmevolution").

It isn't worthy of debate because of one fact. "Intelligent design" isn't science, it's a belief. If you introduce the supernatural, or anything that can't be tested or proved into a theory, it isn't science. It's a belief that is perfectly OK for anyone to believe, but only science should be taught in public schools. The other thing that burns my ass about arguments for "intelligent design" is that people (purposefully or not) misunderstand and misuse the term "scientific theory" as meaning a "scientific guess." Kenneth R. Miller, the Brown University biology professor quoted in the article, has a more pithy explanation than I could give:

"Scientific theories are not hunches," he added. "When we say 'theory,' we mean a strong, overarching explanation that ties together many facts and enables us to make testable predictions."

Why are we wasting time on this? It almost feels like a distraction from more important stuff America should be arguing about - like why it is or isn't a good idea to buy a Bugaboo stroller? Where's The Daily Show expose about that!!

OK. I'm done. Sorry for the (kind of off topic) rant.

Pa. Case Is Newest Round in Evolution Debate [Washington Post]
15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense (A great .pdf file that's definitely worth a read.) [Scientific American via Boing Boing]

Fourteenth month developments.

Like my wife put it the other day, Madame is right on the verge. There were some huge developments this past month, but they aren't complete yet. It seems like every month I'm so amazed at the new stuff she's learning and doing, and I wonder if I'll feel this way until she moves out of the house. Probably.

• Walking.  This is (obviously) the big one. The crazy thing is, she got really good at standing, and then one day she took 4 or 5 steps. Every day after that she's been taking more steps, and now she can walk for fairly long distances. Crawling is still more efficient for her, but that balance is going to tip soon. We've been experimenting with shoes for her too, but she absolutely hates them. They're like cement on her feet, and she'll stand and give you this look like, "what the hell are you doing to me?"
• Teeth, teeth and more teeth.  This past month it seemed like all the rest of her teeth started coming in all at once. Her teething must be painful, but she's been a pretty good sport about it actually. Every now and then she'll grab her cheeks and give me the crinkle (a look like "um, this is really uncomfortable"), but she doesn't freak out. And I've lost count at how many there are.
• Talking.  My little chatterbox is never at a loss for something to say, but she just hasn't quite figured out the words yet. And the older she gets the more frustrated she seems to get at the fact that we can't quite understand her. I thought about doing some of that baby sign language stuff with her (I never saw how useful it would be until recently), but I'm still not convinced. We're getting by fairly well with pointing, which is kind of like sign language, right?
• The pickle lip.  Before this past month there was really only one way for her to show displeasure - crying. But now she saves crying for the really upsetting stuff, and when she's just generally unhappy (like when I take something away from her or tell her not to climb up the stairs) she gives me the pickle lip. Where she learned to stick her lips out and give a sour-puss like that I'll never know. Maybe it's genetic, because my wife says her grandma used to give the exact same expression when she was annoyed. Either way it usually just makes me laugh, which is the wrong reaction when she's doing something I don't want her to.

Endtroducing the Minnetonka High Percussion Ensemble.

Damn this is cool. Brian Udelhofen, a teacher at a Minneapolis high school arranged and then taught his after-school percussion group to play two songs off of DJ Shadow's Endtroducing ("Building Steam with a Grain of Salt" and "Changeling"). The kids had to spend an unbelievable amount of time rehearsing because it's perfect - with live drums that sound like drum loop edits and everything. Someone should give this teacher a raise or a grant or something.

Check out the video here (direct download link - 67MB wmv).

School band play "Endtroducing" with real instruments [Music Thing via Waxy.org] 

MDD in the NY Times.

Earlier this week I gave a comment to a reporter from the NY Times for an article about strollers that came out this morning, so if you're visiting MDD for the first time, welcome.

As for the article, I make no apologies for loving my stroller. And like I told the reporter, I haven't personally come into contact with anyone who was annoyed by it (at least anyone who would come up and tell me).  If anything my experience is the exact opposite. At least a few times a month a stranger will come up to me and ask me about the stroller, where did I get it, etc. I can't help the intentions other people project on me when I'm using the stroller, nor can I be responsible for careless or thoughtless people who are using them.

Anyway, I'm always happy to have new people checking out my site, so please stay and look around for a while. I've included a couple of links on stroller-related stuff, or you can search the site for keywords like "bugaboo" or "stroller".

Supersize Strollers Ignite Sidewalk Drama [NY Times]

Also on MDD:
Bugaboo cup holder. Round one., and, Round one results. (my most popular search referral)
Expensive stroller saves baby, "spendthrift" dads vindicated.

Babytalk magazine poll reveals absolutely nothing.

If you ask me, parenting magazines are primarily the province of moms. I've never read one that wasn't mom-centric and that treated dads in any way equally. When I first had a baby I used to get worked up about this kind of stuff, but quite frankly now that my baby is a toddler I don't have time for that kind of indulgence. And I get it - men don't buy parenting magazines, so advertisers target women reading parenting magazines, and you aren't going to get one that caters to men too. We've got blogs if we want to get a male parenting perspective (and they've been doing the job pretty well for me for the past year and a half).

So today I saw this news blurb about a poll of new parents that Babytalk magazine recently ran. (Babytalk, for those of us that weren't aware, has apparently recently debuted "Unique New Positioning" and a new tagline, "Straight talk for new moms." "Straight talk" as opposed to the confusing "Babytalk" they were previously getting.) Anyway, the news article said that the poll revealed a "mom-dad-baby love triangle." Here are the conclusions:

• More than two-thirds of the men said their wives don't pay as much attention to them as they did before the baby.
• The majority of women feel more connected to their babies than to their husbands.
• Half of the men feel sexually neglected by their wives; 19 percent feel emotionally neglected.

I am so sick of reading these "polls" that purport to reveal some hidden truth, but really just try to stir up some contrived publicity for a magazine (usually through a catchy headline like "mom-dad-baby love triangle"). Why is this particular poll idiotic?

• Of course the mother of your child won't pay as much attention to you as she did before she had the baby. YOU JUST HAD A FREAKING BABY. There's a lot to do. You probably aren't paying as much attention to your wife either.
• I'm a dude, but even I understand that it's probably impossible to feel more connected to anyone other than the human being that recently came out of your vagina. I'm not bothered by this at all. It doesn't mean your wife doesn't love you or still feel connected to you too.
• Sexually neglected? I'm not sure how the poll was worded, but again, YOU JUST HAD A FREAKING BABY. If you thought you'd have just as much sex as you did before you had a newborn, then you should have rethought the unprotected sex in the first place. There is no way any "new parent" is as sexually active as they were before the baby arrived - which is completely normal. And some dudes might interpret that as "neglect" because, well, dudes are always horny.

New moms, dads polled [Knight Ridder via News-Leader.com]

Vidster.

Is it just me, or does it seem like the promise of new technologies is finally starting to pay off? When I was in junior high I got my first film camera, a Bell & Howell that took 110 film. It was so awesome (to me at least) I kept it in its protective plastic case (which was about three times bigger than the camera itself) whenever I wasn't using it. The idea of being able to have my own movie camera was so impossible I would have never even thought of it. But that's not the world my daughter is growing up in.

Mattel has recently announced the Vidster (pictured), and from what I've read it seems like they've got it right. For $80 you get a fully functioning, durable video camera (no LCD viewer though), that stores video to an SD Memory card (it comes with a 32 MB card, but you could upgrade it of course). It also runs on 4 AA batteries and ships with video editing software for kids. In my mind this is exactly right. The memory card means no tapes or fine mechanical moving parts for a child to break, and the fact that it runs on AA batteries means no freak-outs from your kid when the camera isn't charged up when he or she wants it. Plus, spending time with your young Fellini editing a movie that they shot is the kind of dad/kid activity that I'm all about. I'm guessing this is going to be a popular Christmas gift this year.

Makin' Movies with the Vidster [PC World via Shiny Shiny]
Also on MDD - First digital camera.

Blockbuster baby announcements.

When it came to sending out baby announcements, we opted to go with 2Peas1Pod. It's a small business set up by a mom/graphic designer, and we were very happy with the results. Another designer sent me a link recently to his baby announcement business called 5 Star Baby, where he makes personalized birth announcements that look like movie posters. It's a cute idea, and clever enough without being too "clever" (anyone ever gotten one of these Hershey candy bar "HERESHEIS" announcements?).  I can't vouch for it personally, but the business looks similar to 2Peas1Pod, with personalized service and attention, and it's probably something that most of your friends and family haven't seen before.

Check them out at 5starbaby.com.

Also on MDD - Birth Announcing