"Poouquet": If You Have to Ask, You Don't Want to Know

I found this great post on HowtobeaDad.com and just had to share. If you're a parent, you know exactly where they are coming from. If you're not a parent, thank your lucky nostrils...you've saved yourself from scent nightmares.

Like finely crafted wine, you can tell a lot by the fragrances of things, though in this case, a really groady cheese might be a more fitting analogy. Normally a wine’s bouquet refers not just to the first nostril impression of a particular grown-up grape juice, it also refers to the scent (or stank) it develops post-fermentation. It’s the same for poop. It always has a distinct (or distinkty) bouquet: a poouquet.

When a baby or kid cracks open a load from the cellar of their bum, by smell alone, one can learn to tell an entire long-winded Yelp review’s worth of information before even setting eyes on the vintage. It’s true, this also applies to pee pee, but poo clearly tends to be much more nose-forward.

Parents get so good, they can smell a kid’s fart and know exactly what’s gonna be uncorked later. Some parents can develop such an expert nose that they can tell what a kid ate and when, the kind of day the child’s had, what games they played and what the weather was like where they were.

It’s pretty spectacular to observe and worthy of a slow clap, if you can get past that whole dry heaving part.

Hump Day Humor: 5 Funniest Tweets of the Week So Far

BONUS TWEET:

A Proud Dad: Anlee's New Mode of Transportation - 10 Months

Parents always say it...but kids really do grow up too fast. My baby girl was seemingly just born yesterday and now she's pushing around a walker! (The circle of life: Fast forward another 90 years and she'll still be pushing around a walker...maybe in 2105, a hover-walker.)

And I wasn't the only one proud of her new accomplishment. You can hear her bragging as she waddles with wheels.

Hump Day Humor: 5 Funniest Tweets of the Week So Far

BONUS TWEET:

Top 10 Reasons Why I Love My Wife

As parents, so much of our time has to be devoted to the baby. And all that attention can take focus away from our relationship as husband and wife.

My wife and I realize this and have had to get creative to show how we care. But as a dude with a lot of chest hair and not a lot of table manners, romance doesn't come easy. I'm not a flowers on a random day or shoe shopping companion kind of "kind of" man. But I try to do what I can because she's clearly out of my league and so far, I've kept her from recognizing that obvious fact.

There aren't many spare moments in the day, so we shoot each other love notes. Whether it be a text or email, just something to let each other know we're thinking about us as a couple.

And now I want the world to know how wonderful of a wife and mother she really is.

Here's an open letter I sent to her via email today:

Top 10 Reasons Why I Love You

10. You smell good
9. You look good
8. You're hotter than me
7. Your dad makes great ice cream
6. You make me smile
5. You have a bodacious butt
4. You care about everyone
3. You do special things for me even when you're busy
2. You're an amazing mother
1. You're my best friend

How do you display affection to your partner, even when both your lives are chaos?
I'd love to hear from you...and maybe steal your ideas.

How To Not Suck as a Dad

There are plenty of resources out there for parents looking for advice. Tips, secrets, guidelines, simple steps, whatever you want to call them...there's no shortage of places telling you what you can do better.

This humble post is NOT one of them.

I have absolutely no idea how to raise your children: I'm just trying to keep my own daughter from crawling headfirst into a random chasm around the house. You'll never hear me proclaim to be a bad ass dad, because frankly I'm making up this "parenting stuff" as I go along.

But I do know a few surefire things NOT to do.

• DO NOT BLINK
  Close your eyes even for a millisecond and your kid will somehow move to Russia. I can't explain it and modern physics can't defend it, but children are indeed faster than the speed of light. But they only have this super speed when no one is watching.
• DO NOT EAT
  The moment you pick up an eating utensil and aim it at your mouth, your baby/toddler will cry. And not just a normal cry, it's a purple faced, banshee screaming, jealousy rager at the dinner table. But I can see why. They are forced to swallow regurgitated pea mush while I devour this delicious whole T-bone steak. That leads me to a secondary lesson...DO NOT PUT T-BONE STEAK IN THE BLENDER.
• DO NOT MISTAKE SILENCE FOR PEACE
  More than likely, something is frantically wrong when a full house falls silent. You might be tempted to breath a sigh of relief when you don't have an earfull of chaos, but you should probably check on the mini humans. They're either doing something incredibly lawless, passed out willingly or unwillingly, or perhaps exited the geographic area.
• DO NOT GIVE YOUR CHILD COCAINE OR A TIGER
  Seriously, don't do it.
   

Hump Day Humor: 5 Funniest Tweets of the Week So Far

Midweek: halfway between the day that shall not be named (it starts with M and ends with hell) and your impatiently waiting freedom. I think we all deserve a laugh...

While I'm not necessarily posting about funny boobs (well, maybe sometimes), follow me on Twitter @njones_13 for a wide variety of stuff to enjoy wasting your time online.

BONUS TWEET:

6 Things I Miss About Being Childless

Don't take the rest of this post the wrong way, I love my daughter. I can't even imagine my life without her.

She's my heart, my happiness and there's nothing I would change, even if I could. She's made me a better man, just by being born.

But being a parent is hard damn work. And sometimes I think back to when everything was a little easier, a little lazier. So here is my list of things I miss about the era before the mini human.

1. Peace and Quiet

Remember when you could hear yourself think? Yeah, those were the times.
Anlee hasn't piped down since the first day she heard herself squeak. And why would she? She's got an angelic voice. But when angels start teething, you'll want earplugs. I now cherish the times in my car on the way to work because....shh.

2. Doing What I Want, When I Want

While this kind of went away when I got married, the handcuffs really tightened with the destroyer of diapers. No more partying, no more late night runs to Taco Bell, no more spur of the moment trips to a Cardinals game. Once upon a time, I had a whimsy...now I'm a wimp, bullied by a baby.

3. Sleep

I really don't have to explain this one do I?

4. Hanging Out with Friends

I wasn't Charlie Murphy or Van Halen, but there were a few people in my entourage before I fathered a child. Today, I've pretty much stopped meeting fully-grown people face to face. Seeing my friends now requires some kind of life event: weddings, births, fantasy football drafts, etc.

5. Using My Brain

Something crazy happens when you become a parent, YOU LOSE YOUR EFFING MIND. (Get it, something crazy? Punny funny) Like you can't even finish a thought without another one running into it. (Just like that previous sentence...I think.) With so much to do, so much to worry about, you're always forgetting something. I still haven't found my left shoe I left on top of the car three months ago, but the hot dog had great arch support.

6. No Cargo

Packing for a weekend road trip before the baby:
- Clothes (one extra T-shirt)...check
- Wallet...check
- Deodorant...questionable
That's it. That's all a dude needs.

Now that we've got an extra life form that needs help eating, playing, sleeping, burping, more freight is required for any venture out of the house. As I covered in my last post "Uh, What Did I Just Say?...#1", we pack enough shit to survive the zombie apocalypse.   

What do you miss most about the time before you had children? Has it changed over the years? Leave a comment below!

Uh, What Did I Just Say?...#1

"Hold on, let me get the can of tuna out of my pocket first."

We've all been there: trying to carry too much, not enough hands.

As a new parent it just gets worse. It's become a "manhood challenge" for me to bring everything in one haul. I feel like a pack mule lugging around a diaper bag, car seat, unused pacifiers, baby food, discarded or soiled articles of clothing, misplaced shoes, plus my own necessities.

So I have to get creative. Every available pocket or vice-like body joint (armpit, elbow, neck, mouth are all awkward, but functional cargo clinchers) has to be used. Last night, I needed to bring in a wayward can of tuna from grocery shopping, so I popped it in my jean's back pocket. I'm just glad I remembered to get it out before it ended up as tuna casserole in the laundry...

my ramble

we all ramble in confusion we put question marks where there should be exclamation points we forget to put in commas when we know theres a pause we dont put an apostrophe a hyphen a backslash a parentheses to combine thoughts letters words phrases sentences
i see life as a mixture of thoughts i see time as continuous words my mistakes underlined my triumphs are in bold ill even insert a colon right parenthesis when im smiling everything around me is just jibberish but i can make sense of it all if i just put in the grammar i learned way back when i was learning when i put a question mark after everything ?
my existence is a sentence seperated by commas, those are my pauses in which i learn, maybe a new step in my journey, something that will keep me moving on, but right now im just stepping back to admire what ive done since the last comma, hoping to do it right before i get to the next comma, but something special always happens inbetween and i add something new to the list, new people, new places, new surprises, new lessons,
i'll put apostrophes in to combine my thoughts my beliefs my faith i've taken what's been taught by my parents my family my childhood i've added what's been given by my friends my teachers my people i'll drop i'll let go of the mistakes i've made but learned so much through and then i'm making a better word a better world never wondering what could'a would'a should'a
I might capatalize things that are Important to Me Good Times and Bad Times stand out but for some reason the inbetween just all seems to run together and fades into the backround My Love My Passions My Obsessions will Always be larger than i realize My Heart may not be able to take it worries pain failure let me down but what will always keep me up is my FAITH
I'm tempted to put in periods to end my statements, my sentence, my life, but I can't because it's not time yet, my existence hasn't been declared over, done, finished, I've still got time to do what I want with this statement, this sentence, this life, i don't want to grasp it all yet
i just ramble in confusion admiring the wonderful mess not worrying about making sense i just dont want this sentence to end

Note: I wrote this back in college (in 2006). It's amazing how my viewpoints have changed and remained all at the same time. Obviously, I'm still rambling...

SLEEP! By Any Means Necessary.

SLEEP
By any means necessary.

Seriously, parents. Figure out how to do it every friggin’ chance you can get. Become a ninja of the not-so-martial-art of naps. Because when you’ve gone without it for long enough, it’s the most addictive thing ever. Shopping? Haha! Sex? Pfffft! Breathing? Okay, you get the idea.

I found this post on How to Be a Dad blog and thought it was hilarious. It also made me cry...I'm sleep deprived. 

We're currently going through a phase where our 9-month-old can't, or won't, sleep through the night no matter what we do. She loves 4 a.m. I hate it.  

This is Why Babies Are Always Hungry...

Found this on the Funny Photos of the Day at Mandatory.com