Mom and I are excited because Baby Mojo has found his voice.
Unfortunately that is not a singing metaphor; rather our eight month old has discovered that he can talk. I’m all for talking; don’t get me wrong, but an eight month old talks at one volume: a very loud and punishing auditory dagger that would have Spinal Tap dialing it down from 11.
The screaming from our son usually happens when he’s being fed solid foods. The red in his face, packaged full of baby rage is all treble, no bass; which seems to make the shrieks hurt that much more.
Being a new stay at home dad I know that more challenging situations will arise. To deal me with the sonic assault coming from our son’s pie hole I’m faced with a couple options. Continue reading Sonic Youth of my loins
The other night Mommy Mojo and I were relaxing at home. It had been an exhausting day and we decided to rent something from our shortlist queue of movies that aren’t too objectionable for either of us. The Tooth Fairy was on that list.
Dwayne “Can you smell what The Rock is Cookin” Johnson, plays an almost over the hill hockey player who is infamous for knocking out other player’s teeth. He’s dating a single mom (Ashley Judd) with two children, the younger of which is losing some teeth. Hockey player casts doubts on the tooth fairy, has to serve time being one-while occassionally playing hockey and being a daddy role model to the Judd’s older son.
Hilarity, romance ensue, cue the suprise casting by Seth MacFarline and Billy Crystal, fade out with a lesson learned for everybody involved. The Rock was good for what it was, as was, Ashley Judd-who was almost unrecognizeable, did she have plastic surgery or something? She didn’t need plastic surgery, if she had it as she was always super cute and fun to watch in any of her damsel in distress movies with Morgan Freeman. Bottom line, The Tooth Fairy was a semi enjoyable, Lifetime movie masquerading as a vechicle for The Rock that could’ve easily been shown on any number of cable networks.
There you go dads, I just saved you rental fee and ninety minutes. Having said that, this was my first time seeing such a movie now that I have a child.
Mothers and wives sometimes don’t see the value in what guys or growing boys have. Sometimes it’s a collection, a piece of clothing or a thing that looks like an old rock. For me it started with a concert tee for Oingo Boingo, who I had seen in concert at an outdoor festival. That was early 80s new wave at its best, even today Boingo’s music sounds great thanks in part to Danny Elfman and their tight rhythm. Their frantic, multi layered music captured the sensibilities of a hyperactive teenage boy perfectly. Continue reading The 40 million year old paper weight-Sand dollars in the Sahara
Baby Mojo has been waking up at night lately. He had been sleeping for 7-8 hours, but with spring here we think he may be getting hot. It's too nice outside for the air conditioning to be on, half of our windows don't have screens and money is too tight to get a new screen professionally made. What's a stay at home dad with no time to do?
Duct tape across the window, even with the sticky side facing in, would look entirely too gauche. Mommy Mojo stepped up to the plate, did the research and found out that for $5.35 we can purchase a roll of screen material that we can cut ourselves.
The blue painters tape around the screen says all you need to know
Technically, there’s nothing too difficult about the job. Granted there is 0% chance of the screen window actually looking good when it’s finished, but at least it wouldn’t be challenging or take too much time.
Measure twice, measure again, then cut once. The surface didn’t have the area to allow for actually duct tape (damn it…), so I used some painters tape on the exterior of the screen against the window frame. Screen window up, window open and Baby Mojo still woke up at 5AM. His little diaper had reached the limit of its absorbency and little Mojo was at his wit’s end, poor little dude.
My jury rigged screen window at least allows for a cross breeze to go through the house. It also has the added effect of a blue sticky surface that will trap some of the unlucky bugs. Their screams of pain will warn the others not to approach this steel grid of security.
Does anybody out there have a hammer drill? I needed one for a project a couple of years ago and my first thought was what the hell is a hammer drill? It sounds like some monster hybrid tool that can cure cancer. It’s best friends in the tool world are probably the grill router or pneumatic laser level.
I knew that I had to have a hammer drill. When I got to the tool store I also purchased a reciprocating saw, which is equally as practical and also has a kick ass name. That salesperson had struck novice home improvement gold. If he said that all the rage in testosterone home improvement was a gas-powered alarm clock I would’ve signed up for that too.
In my current reality, the hammer drill and all of these things sound like B-grade movies on Syfy. They’re filming Sharktopus, recently showed Mega Piranha and will air MothMan in a couple of weeks. You know you want to watch them, quit denying it.
In a couple of years if they get really desperate they can shoot Screen Hole, the story about the world’s worst storm window and how it created a worm hole to another dimension. I just hope they get Michael Cera to play me and not Shia LaBeouf.
April 1-17, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, 11:00 am. It’s a family friendly show geared for children ages 3-10, it’s good fun and the shows only last an hour, so it’s a good time for the kids. Kudzu Playhouse.
The other night Mommy Mojo and I were going to bed. I was about to start reading my book when she had one of her questions that would befuddle Jack Handy.
“Sweetie, I decided that if an intruder comes into the house then I would take Jake, run out the house with my phone and call 911. What would you do?”
“We’ll, if I were stuck in the bedroom then I’d probably get the big knife”, I said.
I thought she knew about the big knife in the bedroom. “We have a big knife in the bedroom!?”, she said. At this point I suspected that my evening reading was probably not going to happen so I rolled out of the bed and proceeded to get the big knife.
It’s kept in my underwear drawer, so that way I can feign getting my socks or underwear when any burglars come in. ‘Oh, one moment Mr. Intruder, let me get some new socks on and I’ll show you where the valuables are…’, then I’d take the knife and get all Steven Segal on that predator.
I take the big knife out of the underwear drawer and my wife says, “Sweetie, that’s the big knife?
I wasn’t sure if I should run out and get the kitchen knife in my underwear drawer or lobby again for guns in the Mojo house.
Granted, in the kitchen, it’s not a big knife, but big is all relative. You put that knife someplace where you’re not expecting a knife, then it’s big. I put a tube of chap stick beside it so you can get a true scale of it’s blade.
Come to find out the big knife is a custom made cutter that can’t be duplicated. It was given to me on my 16th birthday, at the time a rather odd present I thought. My name is engraved on the edge of the blade and it’s something that I can pass down to Baby Mojo; so he can keep it in his underwear drawer when his wife won’t let him get a gun.
Mommy Mojo loves to ask deep questions right when we’re about to go to sleep.
True conversation
Mommy Mojo: Sweetie, would you still love me if I had amnesia?
Daddy Mojo: Yes, sweetie. I’d still love you if you had amnesia and when you asked me why we had 10 dogs I’d say, ‘sweetie, we had 10 dogs before you were sick, you don’t remember them?’
Since my big knife was ridiculed I’m going to lobby for something more effective to fight home intruders with, like a cross-bow. I’ll put a catherine wheel in the corner just in case I need to get all Sir Lancelot on that predator.
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