Episode 117: The time I wore a yellow headband in public

Sorry for not updating much recently, I have been away for a few days dealing with the death of my grandmother. I will have much more on that situation tomorrow, when I have a little bit more time to sit and write (the baby has already woken up from her nap), but for now I will say this. I loved my grandmother very much, we were very close and I will never forget the time I was able to spend with her. That said, I am not sad that she is dead and I don't want anyone reading this to feel bad for me. She has not been my grandmother for some time now. Old age and declining health had relegated her to a nursing home that she never wanted to be in and took away any sense of life, energy or personality that she had. Two weeks ago I drove home by myself to see her for the last time and what I found was a shell of a human being, experiencing nothing but sadness and pain. She was half asleep, could barely talk, and struggled to acknowledge that I was there- even though she knew exactly who I was. I wished right then and there that God would just take her once and for all. So, when my mother called last week and told me that she finally succumbed I was totally relieved and felt a sense of happiness. Sure, I will miss her and everything that we had experienced together, but it made me feel a lot worse to have to sit there and think about her suffering in that home than it did to know that she was finally at peace.

Like I said, the past week or so has been stressful with the whole travel arrangement, dealing with family and, in my case, writing her eulogy thing but my grandmother's death in the end was a blessing for both her and our family. We were able to come together to celebrate her like we had not in many, many years, and were able to put aside a lot of longstanding feuds and differences for at least a few days. So, I thank everyone for their thoughts and prayers but please, do not be sad for her or for myself. She is happy now and I am relieved. I'll miss her, but I know this is best for everyone. All the sappy mourning crap aside, the wake/funeral experience was pretty entertaining in a lot of ways- not the least of which was me almost falling in to the grave trying to lift her casket over a headstone. Yeah, I was not the world's greatest Pallbearer. Anyway, tune in tomorrow for a full, sadness-free report on the funeral experience. For now, read this story about how I wore a baby's yellow headband out in public for several hours today. Thanks, and sorry again for neglecting you readers for the past few weeks.

Since Av has become more and more of a human and less and less of a baby I have been subjected to increased amounts of forced dressing up. She likes to make me wear funny hats and yellow shirts, put stickers on my face and draw on my arms. Typically, any morning I can be found laying on the floor of her bedroom going through her little cabinet of headbands, hair ties, clips and bows, or as she calls them, 'pretties.' At first I was kind of a dude about it and wouldn't put stuff on when she asked me to, but I really don't care anymore. In fact, it is pretty safe to say that I don't really care about much of anything anymore. I have no one to impress, as long as I don't smell.

I would say at the very least, three out of the five days of the week I end up wandering around the house with various little girl hair accessories in my hair, much to the amusement of Av. Today we were playing like usual and I put a yellow headband with some lace and sparkles on my head. Av laughed hysterically and the day went on. We kept playing for a little bit, took a bath, had a snack, got dressed, played a little bit more and eventually decided to head out and enjoy the unseasonably warm weather. We climbed in to the car and headed toward the park, making a quick stop at Walgreens for a caffeinated beverage. We spent about 10 minutes in the fairly busy store and checked out. We made our way across town to Forest River, fed the ducks, jumped in the leaves and walked to the playground. There were a ton of people everywhere because it was so nice out. We were on the playground equipment for at least 15 minutes when a sassy old black woman playing with her grandson looked at me, laughed an awesome Whoopi Goldberg-like laugh and said 'Oh sweetie, that's cute.' I had no clue what she was talking about. I thought she was referring to the baby's shirt. I kind of gave her an 'ok crazy lady' smile and went along my way. That is when I remembered the headband. 'Oh no,' I thought. 'Tell me I am not still wearing that.' Sure enough, I reached up and there it was sitting comfortably on my head. I had been wearing it in public for a half hour- with no hat, no hood- nothing. Now, obviously everyone knew that I was just wearing it to be silly with my daughter, but I was still kind of embarrassed by it. Then, as I was about to reach up and take it off, I remembered how little I cared about being embarrassed at the park and just kept wearing it until we got home. I really, truly just don't care. Screw society.

That is the thing now. I really just don't care. Everyone always has something to say about everybody these days. Everyone has issues and causes and things you should and shouldn't do. Everyone has some politician they want to vote for and another one they hate. No one just goes about their business anymore. Everyone has to be worried about everyone else. Well, not me. Do what you want, leave me alone, and if I am wearing a little girl's headband to the store don't worry about it. Maybe I like it. Maybe it is comfortable.

Episode 116: 'Bye Bye That Guy!'

Anyone who has been following this blog for more than a day or two understands by this point that I am a pretty emotionally unstable individual. For example: I no longer watch the Price is Right because it makes me sad when the old people lose. Can't handle it. Some days I wake up in a great mood ready to tackle the day. I am talkative and fun loving. Other days, like today, I wake up sad and lazy with a 'what's the point' attitude and depress myself in to thinking that I am some sort of epic failure. There is no reason for any of this. I haven't experienced a whole lot of trauma in my life and my childhood wasn't particularly bad, although I do tend to erase my memory every five years or so as a sort of mental cleansing mechanism, so who knows. I've always just kind of been a weirdo with a lot of insecurities and emotional baggage. It's cool, I gave myself an honorary psychology degree so that I could treat myself. No worries. All is well.

The important thing about this is that I am full aware of my own insanity and have come to terms with it, although many times I don't realize that I am being crazy until several days later. One way you can always tell when I am on an upswing is when I spend more money than normal, especially if it is on things like $103 wireless routers, or a 16 pack of forks. Likewise, a downswing will cause me to sleep more often than not, dread every day tasks like brushing my teeth and, more importantly, will usually result in infrequent, short blog posts. This is why I could never write a book. I am not stable for a long enough period of time to accomplish anything. Anyway, I have no idea why I think anyone cares about this. Today's post isn't about me being weird, it is about my kid and how I prevent her from following suit.

Since the day I found out that we were having a girl I knew we were going to have our hands full. Women by nature are completely illogical and insane to begin with. Yes, this counts for all of you. Every single one of you. I'm sorry, but that's the way it is. It isn't your fault. It is some sort of gene you are born with. Or maybe it is just that whole 'cycle' thing. That seems like a weird thing to have to deal with. If you combine that with my overall weirdness and moodiness, likewise with Monica, you have a ticking time bomb. Luckily for us, Av has managed to maintain a fairly steady mental demeanor thus far. She is absolutely a weirdo, but emotionally she is almost always happy unless she is tired. Good for her. We're doing a nice job, I think.

There is one disturbing trend that has surfaced, however. The baby has a complete inability to let potentially traumatic things go. The best example was school. Remember the whole school idea? She was pretty much afraid of any adult that resembled a teacher for about two weeks afterward. We couldn't even go to the library. I had initially chalked that behavior up to the trauma of the whole school experience and being so young and all, but recently she has started to show a pattern. When she doesn't like something, or more importantly something scares her or makes her sad, she is constantly looking out for it and doing everything she can to prevent it from happening.The best example I can give is something that happened at Target today, and has been happening the past few times we've been there.

At the Target near our house they have set up a toy display that features this guy:
From what I understand from the display, he is supposed to be Big Foot. He moves around and walks and talks and growls. I am pretty sure he is designed to be a ferocious but friendly type guy, kind of like Mr. T, but he terrifies the baby. The display is inside a plastic case and you have to press a button to activate him. Having no idea that he would scare her I showed him to her one day, garnering a pretty negative response. A few weeks later Av was being a brat in the store so Monica walked past it and hit the button again, knowing it would scare her, in an effort to teach her a lesson about payback- or something. Anyway, Big Foot was greeted with the same result. Was that a mean thing for her to do? Absolutely not. She deserved it. Kids can be dicks sometimes.

Well, that second encounter must have done something to really screw her up because the past two times we have gone to Target she has started freaking out in the parking lot. Usually when Av encounters something that she can't identify she refers to it as 'That Guy.' Thus, when she doesn't want to be around something she will say 'Bye bye, That Guy.' Well, that started up almost immediately when we got out of the car. She clung to me like she did when I dropped her off at school, like a Koala, and just kept yelling 'Bye bye That Guy!' Ok. I get it, kid, but we need some stuff and we have to go in the store. Relax. The entire time we were in the store the kid was in a panic. Wouldn't sit in the cart, even cried at one point when we turned down an aisle that was in sight of the display. All she did while we were checking out is remind me that we were leaving and we weren't going to see that guy. Like I was for some reason just going to run over there real quick and press his 'try me' button just to be a dick. So dramatic. So unnecessary. I don't know what to do. I don't think we can shop at Target anymore.

In a somewhat related story, we were at a Tedeschi's yesterday and there was a stupid Halloween display with some scary looking zombie. She did a less panicked version of the 'Bye bye That Guy' thing the whole time there, too. Then the one-toothed, mustached old lady behind the register, who was about 300 times scarier than the zombie, decided that we would be the one customer a day that she interacts with and made the situation worse by basically harassing the baby. She did this by yell/ speaking in her three packs-a-day voice 'I don't know what you're saying sweetheart!' 'Your bottle died?' 'Did your bottle die?' Yes. Her bottle died. It woke up one day, took one too many pain killers with an anti-depressant and blew up his heart Heath Ledger style. It was tragic. We are actually coming from the funeral. We're all still a little bit shaken up. He was so young. What kind of ridiculous assumption is that? I get it. You don't understand what she is saying. She is a toddler. You aren't supposed to. Just shut up and do your job. I didn't come here for the great interaction, I came here for a Red Bull and a package of hot dog buns to feed to the ducks. You have one tooth and a female mustache, don't you know by now that kids are terrified of creatures like you? I was so concerned with keeping this beast from scaring my child, in fact, I didn't even realize that she charged me $2.69 for the hot dog buns despite the giant, yellow .99 CENTS! sticker on the front. So you've scared my kid and ripped me off. Thanks Mustache Mandy.

I am probably being way to dramatic about all of this. She isn't even 2 yet, so she won't remember most of this trauma, but for some reason I still overcompensate whenever she is upset and give her like 6 pop sickles or let her watch TV. In fact, I should probably try and get her used to dealing with the little things now while she still doesn't understand a lot of things. Her life is going to be hard enough trying to manage this confusing little science experiment we all blindly live through every day without me getting in the way.

Episode 115: Scrapes, cuts and bruises

One of the things that drives me crazy as a parent is the constant feeling that other people are judging your ability to care for a child. I always feel like people are critiquing my every move. Thinking to themselves "That baby should have more layers on." or "That baby is screaming at the top of her lungs in the middle of Walmart because she thinks she is funny. He is a terrible father." In fact, I think that is the one that gets me the most. When she makes noise. I hate being that guy with the loud kid.

Since day one I have felt like this everywhere we go. Whether it is the park or the store, I find myself getting mad at people for being judgmental before ever actually knowing if they are even aware of my presence. Just yesterday an old woman at Target waved me across the parking lot when I wasn't ready to cross. We kind of did that both wave at each other thing for a few seconds and eventually I started to feel too much pressure so I just grabbed everything and ran across to the car. When we got to the other side I noticed that the baby had lost a shoe and I had to go back and get it. I waved to the old lady to just go and, after doing the wave back and forth thing again, she made me go back and get the shoe while she waited. All I could think of after was that old hag going to her daughter's house this Sunday and telling her about the moron with the baby in the Target parking lot. Is this irrational? Probably. Insecure? Definitely. Welcome to the inside of my head. It is like sitting in an uncomfortable dentist office waiting room with all of your ex girlfriends and high school teachers and the only magazines they have are 'Golf' and 'Good Housekeeping.' All the time.

As irrational as that is, it is now a billion times worse given Av's sudden propensity for getting hurt in very, very visible ways. Along with the infamous book shelf gash she has managed to add a mysterious small cut under her left eye, probably from scratching herself in the face in the morning, a cheek bruise, probably from flailing around in her crib, a nasty raspberry on her forehead, from falling down in the middle of the sidewalk as Monica repeatedly yelled 'SLOW DOWN!' and just yesterday she added a second raspberry next to the cut under her left eye at the playground. You will notice that I am not sure where a few of these came from. That is because she flails around in her crib every morning like she is in a wrestling match with her toys. I can only imagine that she has smashed her face off of those bars more than once. That last injury I mentioned was particularly troubling because, not only did she fall off of a slide at the park, there were about three moms around to see it. Cool. Not to mention, she didn't hurt herself while blatantly disobeying orders like she usually does, which in my head frees me from blame, she did it being an idiot when I wasn't close enough to stop her.

She was sliding down the twisty slide by herself, as she had six previous times that day, when she decided that she was going to try and turn herself around when she neared the bottom. This, of course, resulted in her flipping off of the end of the slide and landing on her face. Good job. It is bad enough that she is already the only kid her age who can't operate a slide the right way, but just when I think she is starting to get it she goes and does this.

I ran over to pick her up and checked out her face. Like usual, she cried for a second or two and went back to playing. I looked around at the other judgmental moms trying to read their faces. They were all looking at me and one of them smiled and said "Uh oh, did you get a boo boo?" to the baby. Bitch. I actually don't know why she was a bitch. She seemed really nice. It's because she was judging me, dammit!

The real issue here is not with the parents or the wound, it is with that stupid recycled rubber playground surface that they put in. It is like playing on your high school track. OK, great, it is soft and good for the environment. If you fall on it it tears your skin apart like box of bent and broken thumbtacks. It might as well be asphalt. I mean, come on. Kids fall constantly. They run around not paying attention to anything and yelling, you know they are going to hit the deck at some point. My kid falls like 35 times a day. She can't be the only one, can she? What is wrong with good ol' fashioned wood chips? Oh, because you had to cut down a tree to make them? Get over it, environmentalists, it's not like you didn't just go plat 10 more trees somewhere else with your volunteer work and your screen print t-shirts.

That's all for today. I'm losing my mind.

Episode 114: That's not an elephant.

I wasn't going to post this today because I feel like it is a little bit awkward but I have been struggling to find content and motivation lately, so screw it- we're all friends here.

Spending an entire day with Av is a strange experience from start to finish, and one of the biggest challenges is the fact that she never, ever lets me out of her sight. Not when I'm doing chores, not when we're eating and definitely not when I am going to the bathroom. If anyone out there has small children you know that heading in to that room and closing the door is not an option. Peaceful defecation does not exist in my house. It is bad enough when Monica is home and I just have to hear the incessant pounding on the door while she yells 'Daddy!' 'Daddy, doo doo?' but when I am the only one here I actually get the pleasure of letting her come in to the bathroom with me. Awesome. Let me tell you there is nothing like trying to take a piss and stop a child from touching the toilet, getting in to the cleaning cabinet and climbing in to the bathtub all at the same time. It is even better when I am going 'doo doo's' because she dedicates her time in the bathroom to trying to 'help' me wipe my ass, which really just means unrolling the toilet paper and trying to hand it to me. Cool.

The same can be said for getting changed/ dressed in the morning. I try to sneak off and get changed real quick, but usually she is right behind me, in my closet trying to find anything yellow for me to wear. Yellow is her favorite color. I don't think it is so much because of the way it looks, I think she just feels cool that she can say it and she likes to show off. Then she yells at me if I don't put the right shirt on and tries to get me to pick her up while I put my pants on. She does this on purpose. She loves to be a pain in the ass. It is like her hobby.

Anyway, the point is this: For a solid 4-5 months now I have been doing anything and everything I can to prevent the baby from seeing my junk. It is just weird. I don't know what to do or how to explain it or handle it. I don't want her little face asking nonsensical questions and I certainly don't want her to reach out and try to touch it. I really just don't know how to deal with it and, frankly, I feel like it is too soon to find out. There is no reason for her to know about wangs. Ever, really. EVER! Or at least not until she is 30. There have been a few occasions in the past where she has caught a glimpse of the little guy - it is inevitable when she watches me pee- but she has never really acknowledged it before. I assume that she was perhaps confused, or maybe it didn't register. Whatever the case, that changed today.

This morning I was getting us ready to go and still needed to change in to clothing that didn't make me feel like a societal drone, which really just means that I had to lose the sweat pants. I knew this was going to require a certain amount of wang exposure, so I tried to come up with something to distract her. TV- good call. I put on Zaboomafoo and snuck off in to the bedroom to change (don't worry, our apartment is the size of a shoebox, she was fine). She seemed really interested in the show so I figured I had a minute and stripped down to nothing so I could, for once, actually change in to an entire full set of clean clothes. Combine that with the fact that I was able to shower at about 2 a.m. when I got home from work and brush my teeth and I was close, very close, to entering the world as a clean, freshly changed, hygienic human being for the first time in days. It was at this time that Av decided she was going to come see what I was doing. Her little feet pitter pattered in to the bedroom where I was standing and I was faced with the challenge of confronting her while wearing nothing but a pair of socks. She let out a gasp, a giggle and said 'uh oh' (thanks, kid) and ran toward me, index finger extended like ET. In a panic I threw on a pair of jeans and tried to pull them up but they were jeans, so it isn't always that easy. I don't exactly have a super model figure these days. Plus, having learned from experience, it is very important to gingerly pull the jeans up over the junk when going commando as to not catch anything on a zipper or button. All of this caused enough of a delay to where she was able to reach my area with the junk still exposed. Thankfully she pulled back the index finger and stopped short of trying to touch it, instead she just put her arms behind her back and said 'oooohhhh' and then made an elephant noise. Yes, an elephant noise. That's right, Av, daddy has an elephant trunk.

With that moment out of the way I just zipped up and went about my business, never to speak of it again. Kind of like if one college roommate catches the other one doing something weird and just files it away in to the silent memory bank. Like the time we came home from a night of drinking and found that one of our roommates who did not participate had video taped himself having sex with some fat girl and accidentally left the video up on the TV screen. Gross.

In any event, the baby thinks my wang is an unimpressive elephant trunk. Cool. I feel like we have accomplished something today.

Episode 113: Dude, stop trying to swan dive off of the bed

The blog has been kind of stagnant lately in part because of my own laziness but more so because Av has had me running in circles every day. It is really only a matter of time before this kid ends up in the ER- or I end up in the insane asylum. How can you tell that things are getting out of control? It is 10 a.m. and I am still wearing the silver track suit.

Anyway, we all remember Av's vicious face injury last week and I am happy to report that the gigantic gash is slightly less gigantic now and we have managed to avoid any gross, puss-filled eye infections up to this point. Cool. Still, she now seems hell bent on getting hurt in some fashion every single day. She does ridiculous things like try to stand up on chairs when she has no balance, try to climb out of the shopping cart at Target and slit her head open on the floor and try to pick up the cat, which is kind of like writing a formal request for a gross, dull house cat claw in the eye. Just about a half hour ago she ran up behind me and jumped on to my back, smashing her tooth in to the back of my head. Its like a mission. A commitment to getting hurt. It literally takes everything I have just to make sure that she isn't cramming forks in to her eyes or trying to scale the TV. I don't like to think of myself as one of those paranoid parents who are super over protective all day long, but I worked in the newspaper industry long enough to know that kids get messed up in freak accidents every day. From falling in to bathtubs to being crushed by flat screen TV's, weird shit happens to kids all of the time. I don't want my kid to be a statistic.

Oh cool, she is trying to climb on to the coffee table while holding a bottle of water, a stuffed puppy and three crayons. Idiot.

Actual things that I find myself saying to Av throughout the day, listed in order of frequency.

1. 'No pop.'

2. 'Paint only on paper.'

3.' WALK!'

4. 'No hit!'

5. 'No bite!'

6. 'No scream!'

7. 'Dude, stop trying to swan dive off of the bed.'

8. 'Are you seriously going to try and stand up on the coffee table AGAIN?'

9. 'Stop throwing your lunch on the floor. STOP THROWING YOUR LUNCH ON THE FLOOR! Fine, Lunch is over. (followed by yelling and arm flailing).'

10. 'WHY IS YOUR CHAIR ON THE TABLE AGAIN?'

And those are just the usual scoldings. You can add in 10-15 miscellaneous others on any given day. For example I just had to say 'Stop crumpling up napkins and throwing them behind the
TV!'

I feel like her mission to get hurt is part of the overall psychological battle she is waging against me. That hasn't gotten any better, either. Much of her day- at least the parts that aren't spent trying to lose a limb- is devoted to playing tricks on me. Like telling me she wants a banana, waiting until I peel it and then telling me she doesn't want it. Or handing me her paint brush and telling me to draw a doggy and then ripping it out of my hand before I ever bring it to paper. Is this what the terrible twos are? She isn't really mean, she doesn't do the whole 'mine' thing, she just messes with me all day and does her best to push my buttons until I get mad. She does have a problem with hitting that I am not a fan of, and I have to tell you, she has a hell of a right hook. I hope she doesn't become one of those scary lady boxers who show up on ESPN 2 at 2 a.m.

I still need a kid's show

So Av has recently abandoned old favorites Yo Gabba Gabba and Blues Clues in favor of the animal show 'Zaboomafoo.' If you aren't familiar with this show, consider yourself lucky. It came out circa 1999 and stars the Krat Brothers, a very cheesy pair of animal-stalking siblings named Chris and Martin. In fact, I have taken to calling the show 'Chris and Martin's Gay Animal Adventure.' The third star of the show is a leamer named Zaboo. He apparently inherits the ability to speak English as soon as one of the brothers gives him a snack. Then they all hang out at this place called 'Animal Junction' where they run around like idiots and play brotherly tricks on one another. To make things even more interesting, there is a side plot that involves Zaboo telling stories from his time in 'Zabooo Land,' a terrifying claymation universe that features bizarre fictional creatures who saunter around and occasionally wander in to my nightmares. The show is pretty educational, but it is honestly pretty irresponsible, too. I mean, these brothers just let any old animal wander in to the Junction, then they give them a snack and roll around and play with them. It is only a matter of time before one of those two cheese balls gets his head stomped in by an elephant.

As cheesy and annoying as the Krat Brothers are, I will take them any day over Av's old favorite show, 'World's Funniest Animals.' If you ever wanted to see the worst show ever on television, ON Demand that one. The host, Keegan Michael Key, is pretty much the worst human being to ever stand in front of a video camera. The videos aren't even funny, they are just animals doing normal animal things with horrible jokes dubbed in over the original audio. Like a cat playing with a string and then... wait- what's this? ANOTHER CAT! Hohoho, this is a crazy world we live in, kids. All you need to know about that show is that there is a live studio audience and they still use a laugh track. Awful. There isn't even a prize, they just send you $100 and a t-shirt if they use your video. Lame, lame, lame.

The End

Episode 112: Being kind of afraid of a 7-year-old

Being a person who was raised in a modest, lower-middle class neighborhood, living in the ghetto can often times be a challenge. Like today, for example, when I couldn't park in front of my house in the middle of the afternoon because two Spanish teenagers had to sell my downstairs neighbor weed. Or like that time when I accidentally walked out on to my deck to a perfect view of the chick next door standing topless in front of her fridge. I had no chance to look away, her boobs were right in my sight line. That was at least three seconds of rated 'R' nudity. Cool? Not really, especially when you find out that she is in high school. Yeah, it is cool feeling completely filthy for doing absolutely nothing wrong. Who does that? I mean, I get that mom and dad aren't home and your boyfriend just hit the jackpot, but close the windows, man. It reminded me of when I used to work for the housing authority and I would turn a corner mowing the lawn in the projects to randomly see some teen mom getting railed by some random guy in the kitchen window. Ahhh nothing breaks up a long summer afternoon of grass cutting like promiscuous high school dropout project sex.

Anyway, another cool thing about the ghetto is that most of the time I am more afraid of and intimidated by children than I am of adults. Sure, drug dealers and gang bangers are kind of frightening, but they don't really come around our street much and even when they do, they don't want anything to do with me. I don't have anything nice and I don't have any business for them, so who cares? Kids, though, are another monster all together. Kids in the ghetto have no rules. They are completely unsupervised. They essentially run amok at all hours of the day, causing trouble and making noise. I don't even think that most of them have parents. One specific example of this is a little a-hole that lives on a side street next to our house. I estimate his age at around 7-8 years old. He has a Kenny Wayne Sheppard haircut and likes to scowl at cars as they drive by. He literally thinks he is the coolest person in the entire world, and he wants you to be afraid of him. This is Kenny Wayne Sheppard, by the way.Along with scowling at people as they drive by and making fun of other neighborhood kids, this little d-bag and his buddies like to play in the street and not move when the cars come, almost like they are saying 'Screw you, motorist, I'll move on my terms. What are you gonna do? Run me over?' They play aggressive, loud games and often times like to throw hard objects at one another from across the street. They have even set up a rope swing that goes all the way from one side to the other. There is really no point to this other than to bee in other people's way. It's not like they are landing in a lake. It is the ghetto. It's all concrete.

Last night I went out on my porch to get a bit of air before I went to bed. It was around 10:30, just after It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia ended. I hear some kids yelling and I look over to see this little Denis the Menace jerk and one of his friends running through one of our neighbor's back yards carrying paint ball guns. Are you serious? I had to be in bed by 9:30 until I was like 16. And I sure as hell wasn't allowed to have a paintball gun. Even if I was, I wouldn't have been allowed to randomly run through a neighborhood shooting at stuff in the middle of the night. Do these kids even have parents?

Now, I'm not saying that I am intimidated by the kids because I am afraid of them. Obviously I could handle this 7-year-old if he decided to confront me. The problem is, I am not allowed to. It's not like I am going to go over there and kick his ass, and I am sure if I ever threatened the little shit his stupid parents would surface out of the woodwork and confront me. Not to mention, I am not keen on getting in to confrontations with Av around. All I am going to say is that he had better hope I never catch him trying to break in to my car or vandalizing anything that I own, because all bets are off if that happens.

Essentially, I have pretty much had it with the ghetto. It is too loud and no one supervises their kids. I have no desire to raise Av in this environment and I sure as hell don't want her associating with any of those little punks. You know what the worst part is? If this stupid kid ever gets hit by a car because he was running around the neighborhood being a dick at 10:30 p.m. that driver is going to lose his license and that kid is going to be painted as a victim. Just like the girl in Marblehead who got hit by a car and killed when she wandered out in to the road on her cell phone not paying attention. Then she dropped the phone in the middle of the road and someone hit her. That driver was going 20 mph and wasn't on his phone, yet he is vilified. The cops cleared him of wrong doing but the community fired nothing but backlash at he and his family. As if having to live with that wasn't bad enough. Now everyone has 'Slow Down for Allie' stickers on their cars, even though the accident was caused by the pedestrian not paying attention and the driver was not distracted or speeding.

I think this is my larger point. Motorists are held to a very high standard of safety, as they should be, but no one ever gets on pedestrians for being irresponsible. I am terrified when I drive through downtown Salem every day because people just wander in to the road and assume you will stop. Just because there is a crosswalk there doesn't mean that you can cross whenever you want. Especially if there is a green light. Use common sense. If there are 15 cars sitting in traffic and the light turns green you have to wait. Don't even get me started on people who ride bikes, either. Hey Lance Armstrong, you're not in a car, get out of the middle of the road. And unless you're in a race, lose the spandex.

I'm not sure how we got here. Let's backtrack. To sum up, kids in the ghetto are unruly and unsupervised and it is intimidating. Also, as soon as Av is old enough to understand, I am going to teach her the real safe way to cross a street. As in, don't assume someone is going to stop because they may not see you. And texting while walking can be just as dangerous as texting while driving. The End.

The new blog is up.

If you are interested in reading my opinions on sports, music TV, movies and pretty much anything that doesn't involve my kid or my family life, check out blogdump1.blogspot.com. It is a bit more abstract, a bit more fun and a bit more vulgar. It should also effectively prevent those of you who don't care about that crap from being distracted while trying to read about Av. Enjoy.