Every night we read Isaac two stories before bed. One of the books that he took a liking to is Peggy Rathmann’s Good Night, Gorilla.

Then, for Christmas, Erin’s mom got us a pack of DVDs from Scholastic Books. In it was a DVD of one very popular book around this house, Good Night, Gorilla. So while we don’t really let Isaac watch TV much (and he doesn’t exactly love it), a few weeks ago we put in the movie and let him watch it.

Let’s just say it was a hit.

Now at least 10 times a day he’ll walk by the TV or couch and say “Oh-rill-ruh” in an attempt to get us to put the movie on. It’s really cute and he tends to do it a LOT more when Erin’s home. I think it’s because the first few times he watched it were with her and I wasn’t there so he associates her with it (or maybe she’s the easier mark?). It’s gotten to the point we have to tell him he has to wait until after dinner and once he gets his jammies on. Then we have to tell him he only gets to watch it once. It’s a daily ritual.

It’s a really simple story where a tired zoo keeper walks around the zoo telling all the animals good night. The gorilla steals the keys and lets the animals out behind him. Then they go crash at the zoo keepers house, get caught and his wife takes them back to the zoo. The gorilla sneaks back in with the mouse and crash out between the zoo keeper and his wife. The animals that are let out are: gorilla, elephant, lion, giraffe, hyena and an armadillo.

I tell you that story to tell you the application in real life.

Yesterday we were at the zoo and were walking around checking out all the animals. We go to the giraffe exhibit and this happens:

He pointed straight at them and said, “Night, night.”

Damn he’s cute.

As I’ve read parent blogs and tweets from parent bloggers, I’ve come across a common theme. When they need a break from a kid who’s being a little twerp they can pop in a movie or turn on the TV and have a nice quiet hour or two (or until they are sufficiently recovered from the annoyance).

But, for some strange reason, my kid is “different”.

Let’s say there’s a night where he wakes me up 5 times and then gets up at 7am to start the day (not that those have been happening recently or anything). Then let’s pretend that he’s insanely tired but it’s not nap time and he doesn’t WANT to take a nap. So, nearing my last strand of patience, I put in a movie and sit him on the couch with a snack. You know how long he’ll sit and watch? If I’m lucky, 5 minutes.

Then he’s up, pacing around the house, playing with toys and being as rambunctious as always. Sure he might peek at the TV every now and then, but for the most part the TV is dead to him.

Fortunately, however, I don’t need the TV. I have a trick that works every time. It’s the word I hear more than any other: “Outside”

Sucks when it’s raining though…

I’m continuing the “50 Questions That Will Free Your Mind” today with questions 11-15. Once again, thanks to MamaPhan for pointing them out to me.

11. You’re having lunch with three people you respect and admire.  They all start criticizing a close friend of yours, not knowing she is your friend.  The criticism is distasteful and unjustified.  What do you do?

I’d speak up. If I actually respect and admire them then I wouldn’t want to sit there and listen to them bash someone. Even if it was true I wouldn’t want them to do it.

12. If you could offer a newborn child only one piece of advice, what would it be?

Do what you love. Life’s not fun when you’re doing something that you don’t like, so don’t put yourself in that position.

13. Would you break the law to save a loved one?

Absolutely. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for Erin and Isaac, and there’s pretty much nothing I wouldn’t do for my immediate family.

14. Have you ever seen insanity where you later saw creativity?

My old boss at BizRadio had several ideas that could easily have been dismissed as insane but somehow worked out better than I could have expected. Of course he’s also a crook, so he probably isn’t someone to model yourself after.

15. What’s something you know you do differently than most people?

I eat a lot of my foods in even numbers (chips, goldfish, those types of foods). I don’t know why, but I feel weird if I don’t do it. If I get to the end of a bag and there’s an odd number left I split it in half.

Today is, obviously, Valentine’s Day. To say that I’m not a big romantic is…an understatement. I’m just not very good at that kind of stuff. We’re actually “celebrating” it by making a dinner of X and then I’m going to rugby practice. Like I said, not exactly a romantic here.

But I do want to take a minute here and say Happy Valentine’s Day to the two biggest loves of my life, Erin and Isaac. Without these two my life would be nowhere near as complete. I love seeing their faces every morning and saying goodnight to them before we go to bed.

I don’t have a good photo of them together that’s very recent (usually it involves something along the line of Erin’s head being turned as she tries to corral Isaac, or Isaac being a blur in the picture), so I’ll go with my favorite picture of the two of them from the newborn photos.

Hope your day with your loved ones is all you desire!

Now that Isaac is a raging toddler, I have started to notice things that weren’t as evident when he was younger. First off, we don’t wear him as much as we used to, mostly because letting him run around burns off energy that gives us good naps/good nights sleep. But secondly, and perhaps most important, I’ve realized that people who plan out the stocking of stores are either a) not parents or b) complete jerks.

I really got to thinking about it when Erin and I went into Michael’s with Isaac a little while back. She was picking out yarn for something (I think it was for her infinity scarf thingy), so I took Isaac and started walking around to keep him from getting too bored. Now I don’t know if you’ve been to Michael’s and looked at it from a toddler’s perspective, but that place is a GOLDMINE.

A Handful of Everything Please!

I was running after Isaac, grabbing his hand to keep him from picking up things that could break, I was putting things back on the shelf every 10 seconds and just generally trying to keep him from making the place look like our house does by the end of every day. You know, toys all strewn about needing to be put away.

Seriously, who in their right mind puts something breakable within 3 feet of the floor? Or buttons or figurines or…anything really? I submit to all stores that the stocking of items should start, START!!!, at 3.5 feet. This at least gives parents a fighting chance at keeping their toddler from becoming mayhem.

If a store doesn’t agree to my terms of starting stocking that high, I at least request that they wait until 3.5 feet to stock the breakables, choking hazards and cleaning supplies until that height…but nothing is a much better option.

Glass? On the bottom shelf? REALLY?!?

The 5 questions today come from the series of “50 Questions That Will Free Your Mind“. They are numbers 6-10 on the list.

6. If happiness was the national currency, what kind of work would make you rich?

Honestly I’ve never been happier in a job than I am staying home with Isaac. So I guess I would be rich if I could get paid for staying home.

7. Are you doing what you believe in, or are you settling for what you are doing?

I’m doing what I believe is best for our family. I think staying home and raising Isaac is going to make us a stronger family. If I were to be working I would hardly get to spend any time with Isaac and I’d be miserable. A miserable me wouldn’t be good for anyone and it would negatively impact Isaac.

8. If the average human life span was 40 years, how would you live your life differently?

If I knew I’d be dead by 40 when I was young I probably wouldn’t have gone to college. What’s the point of spending 10% of my life getting a degree I’ll only be able to use for 18 years? Unfortunately that would mean that I never met Erin, which would make my life absolutely different.

Who knows what I’d be doing, but it definitely wouldn’t be anything like what I used to do or what I’m doing now.

9. To what degree have you actually controlled the course your life has taken?

Well I went to the college I wanted, I got the job I wanted out of college, I married the woman I wanted and now I have the kid we planned to have together. So I guess I can say I’ve had a fair amount of control over the course of my life.

Is it what a 14 year old version of me would have envisioned if he’d been asked where he’d be in 15 years? Probably not, but it’s where the 29 year old me is very happy to be.

10. Are you more worried about doing things right, or doing the right things?

I’m worried about doing the right things the right way. First and foremost I’m interested in doing the right things, because if you’re not doing those then what are you doing?

I know that there’s an unending butting of heads between working moms and stay at home moms. It all tends to revolve around stay at home moms feeling as though working moms (and husbands) don’t understand how hard their job is. That they’re taken for granted and nobody understands how difficult it is to stay at home with a little ball of energy who just wants to do whatever they want whenever they want.

I’ve seen articles all over talking about this, but the biggest violator that I’ve seen (and the website that caused me enough frustration to want to write this post) is the people over at Babble. The first one I saw (both on their website and posted on Facebook by numerous people AND has spread like wildfire over the internet) was this one. If you don’t want to read it (and I don’t blame you if you don’t), it can basically be boiled down to “you’re lucky you get out of the house and don’t have to suffer the wrath of a toddler’s anger”. Or, to put it another way “yes you have it tough, but look at how rough I have it”. The second one might be a little more accurate way to put their point.

Then there’s THIS gem that I found on their website the other day. I found it via a Tweet from my e-friend Adrian over at Dad or Alive. Now there’s no need to torture yourself by going through every slide, you just need to take a look at the last one. First off, kudos to her husband for never getting on her about everything not being perfect when he comes home from work. But in the same slide the bubble over the guy’s head says “HOW have you been doing this for 10 years?”

Ladies and gentlemen of the stay at home world, I have something to ask you. I beg of you.

Quit complaining so much.

Staying at home is a job. It is a job that has its awesome days, its good days, its normal days, its eh days and its crappy days. But guess what, SO DOES EVERY JOB. And from my experience, the normal to awesome days VASTLY outnumber the eh to crappy days.

When I was working in an office I was constantly being told exactly how to do things by my boss. I was told that I did something wrong, and I had to do things that I thought were stupid, a waste of time or (in many cases), both. And when I had an especially crappy day I’d come home and I’d vent to Erin about it. I wouldn’t tell her that my job was harder than her going to school or being a nurse (when she was one). I’d just tell her about what happened and she’d provide a listening ear. I would do the same thing when I had a great day. Now that Erin’s in the working world, when she has a bad day I listen to her when she gets home.

Don’t get me wrong, I still vent to her if Isaac had an especially rough day, but the point of it is never, NEVER that I have it so rough and she just can’t understand. THAT is what needs to be cut out of every stay at home parents mind. It’s okay to have bad days, it’s okay to talk about the bad day. But the reason we have a bad day is because that’s life. It doesn’t matter where you are or what you’re doing, you’re going to have them.

Quit trying to justify your job when it doesn’t need to be. Quit making it sound like we’re doing the hardest thing ever known to mankind. We have a hard job, our spouse has a hard job. It’s just that they’re different jobs.