Kids: The Worst Roommates

First, I love my kids dearly.  With all my heart.  They're pretty awesome kids.

As far as roommates go... you know, just people you have to live with.... kids are pretty shitty roommates.
Some days The Lovely Wife and I consider dropping them off at the nearest orphanage.

I used to live with this guy, Joshua Lindsey Mercer Clements, and he was a pretty good roommate.  He wasn't perfect; he'd cut his toenails and leave them on the living room table, and he'd dip his toast in ketchup, and I used to have to hide boxes of Lucky Charms under my bed so he wouldn't eat them.  But he had a darn good VHS collection and used to steal nachos from the pub he worked at, so we always had something to eat and watch.

But kids... man, if the person you shared an apartment with tried pulling half the stuff kids do, you'd be kicking them out as soon as the month's rent was paid.

They leave their shit everywhere.  I mean everywhere.  And everything.  Toys, socks, snacks... you name it.  If you had a roommate who just left their shit lying on the floor, you'd be pretty pissed off.  And you know what?  Sure, you can tell them to clean it up - but usually you notice it when they're either at school or sleeping.  Did the guy you live with leave a tiny Barbie shoe on the floor for you to step on in the dark?  Nope?  Oh, poor you.  If it were a roommate, then you might just get sick of it and throw their shit in the garbage.  Take that, you fucking slob!  But the kids? It's pretty likely you paid for that shit with your hard earned money.  Sure, all parents have used the line, "if you don't pick up these toys then I'm throwing them in the garbage," but we don't follow through with it.  That Barbie was, like, fifteen bucks.  I'm not about to just throw fifteen smackeroos in the trash to prove a point.  If you throw away your roommates junk, you might get a punch in the head, but you won't be out fifteen dollars.

Speaking of wasting money, kids waste food.  Food ain't cheap.  When you live with friends, there's no wasted food.  You need to save every extra nickel for beer.  Roommates take all the leftover food and throw it in a pan to make random stir fry.  Case in point, you may remember me blogging about Superman cereal and Batman cereal recently.  They were tasty.  But it should be known that I only bought the Batman cereal because my daughter begged me for it after she loved the Superman cereal.  Then she didn't like the Batman cereal at all.  And neither did I.  But I ate that shit, because I'll be damned if four dollars I spent on cereal was going to waste.

"I don't like this.  It tastes yucky."
"Eat it.  It's good for you."
"But I'm full."
"No you're not.  You've only had two bites."
"My tummy hurts."
"No it doesn't.  Fine.  Eat two more bites then it's straight to bed."
...ten minutes after dinner...
"Can I have a snack?"

Also, have you ever had that one roommate that rambles on about stuff you don't understand at all and really don't know if you care or not?  You know, that one friend that always talks about this other friend you've met maybe once or twice but she talks about them like you're best friends with them too.  Kids are kinda like that.  Some days I have no idea what my daughter is talking about.  And since she started kindergarten, it's gotten worse because she has these friends with really exciting, important lives that I apparently need to know all the details about.  And it's all the most important bullshit in the world.

"And Daddy, my friend at school...he says that there are really aliens in outer space because on the weekend he went to the moon and saw them."

She told me this while I was cooking Kraft Dinner one day.  There was no lead in or reason for me to know this.

Kids.

They cry about nothing at all and they eat their own boogers, but do so in such an elaborate way that you can't see them do it, but you can totally see them doing it.  And when you call them out on it, they wipe their nose on their sleeve when the box of tissues is literally right beside them.

Do you know all the words to "Let It Go"?  I sure do, because I've heard that song at least three hundred times now.  I even know the different versions, whether it's Edina Minzel of Demi Lovato.  Yeah, that's my life now.  The funny thing is, my daughter knows all the words too.  But these days when she's sauntering around the house singing it, she changes the words and insists they're right.  And then when I correct her she tells me I'm wrong and that she knows the words.  I shouldn't argue.  I shouldn't let it get to me.  I should just... I dunno... let it go.  But there I am, arguing with a little four year old about the stupid lyrics of a stupid fucking Disney song.  Seriously.

I know she's changing the words on purpose.  Roommates have done similar things since the dawn of time to try and get the other person to move out.  Doing something obnoxious on purpose is the oldest trick in the book.  Towards the end of living with Joshua Lindesy Mercer Clements, I used to rearrange his CD collection while he was at work.  Not because I wanted him to move out, but because I was just kind of an asshole and liked to see him lose his shit when one CD had been moved out from alphabetical order and swapped with another one.  I tinkered with the idea of swapping all the actual discs with other cases, so when he went to listen to Pearl Jam he'd end up with The Nylons instead.  But I enjoyed being alive and didn't want him to murder me.

Still, I had it pretty good living with Joshua Lindsey Mercer Clements.  I never had to deal with his poo.

Just the other night, my darling daughter called to me from upstairs...

"Daddy, you need to come fix the toilet."
"What's wrong?"
"It won't flush.  You need to come and fix it."
"What do you mean it won't flush?"
"I had a big poo and it won't flush and now you need to fix it."

It's a good thing I love my kids. It's also a good thing I got a vasectomy.  I wonder if those events are related... we may never know.

I guess my point is, if you need a roommate and you're putting a want ad in the paper for one or something, just be careful.  You don't want to end up living with one of your own children by mistake.

Thanks for reading!
- ryan

Being a Parent Really Does Change You

They told you it would happen.  They told me too.

Being a parent will change the way you look at everything.

And sure, there's the way you look at the economy, and the neighborhood you live in, and don't get me started on worrying about public schools or the other idiot kids your child wants to be friends with.

The Lovely Wife and Grayson

Let's start with the basics.

Poop.

It wasn't that long ago that having a conversation about poop was frowned upon in my relationship.  If I ran out from the washroom to let the lovely wife know about the half-footer I unloaded in the toilet, she'd just stare at me as if to say, "Really, and somehow you think you're going to get laid tonight after telling me that?"

I can remember this one time I got in shit from her (pun not intended) because we were at her parent's place for Thanksgiving dinner and I left to go drop a deuce.  I was in the bathroom for, like, fifteen minutes, and apparently it wasn't appropriate for me to do the most basic of bodily functions while all of her aunts, uncles, and cousins were visiting.  Oops.

But here we are, happily married, with two wonderful children - and we often talk about poop.  We keep it a regular conversation.

"Did Ryleigh poop today?"
"Has Grayson pooped yet today?"
"Ooooh, the baby made a smelly poop.  He must be YOUR son."

Heaven forbid I manage to go a few days without changing a dirty diaper.  That's when I'm reminded, by the lovely wife, just how much my six-month old son really loves me, and how he's missed me while I was at work, and how he'd like nothing more than for me to wipe up the smelly poop that has somehow journeyed up to the middle of his back like settlers looking for spices in India.

Ryleigh and me.

We can be at the mall, and Ryleigh - who keep in mind is only four years old - will start a conversation by letting me know about the poop she had the day before.  And sometimes there's no more to the story.  It wasn't an adventure to get the poop out.  Nor was it a freeing experience that inspired a haiku.  Nope.  Simply, "Daddy.. and yesterday I just went poop."  Whoa, surprise ending.

And nowhere is sacred anymore.  If I let a little fart out at the dinner table by accident, I'm condemned to the likes of Hitler, Stalin, and Palpatine.  But just three feet away from me, Grayson grunts and turns his face redder than the devil himself as he fills his diaper with our new dinnertime conversation.  "Oh, somebody's having a big, stinky poop," the lovely wife will say as I shovel another round of mashed potatoes and gravy into my food-hole.  I can't say I blame the boy though, if I were allowed to shit at the dinner table I probably would too - if anything just to see what would happen.

So there you have it.  Poop.  It's what's for dinner.

- ryan

Time For A Bum Change

....something smells funny

"He needs his bum changed."

What the fuck does that even mean?  I know, obviously, my lovely wife is referring to how my child has soiled his diaper with a big, stinky, yellow-ish kinda poo and it's my turn to put a new clean diaper on him.  On average, I get every ninth or tenth poo-diaper.  The odds are usually in my favor.

Not bad.

Not something I'd take to Vegas though either.

We're not the only parents who refer to this as, "Changing their bum."  Somewhere along the way we've all stopped referring to diapers as diapers.  Well, except for when we're shelling out too much money for some combination of paper and cotton that will inevitably be shit in and tossed away.

Diapers and toilet paper.  It's amazing how much money we spend on those things considering what we do with them.  We're quite the culture.  We take very special care of our bum holes.

So... what if we could actually change a baby's bum?

Instead of putting on a new Pampers diaper - and let's not kid ourselves here, I'm a Pampers dad.  It's the only brand of diapers I buy.  Fuck Huggies.  They fucking leak everywhere.  So instead of putting on a new Pampers diaper, imagine you could just remove the child's rear end and put a new one on it in it's place.  We can't be that far away from that reality.  I have to believe in my heart that the Diaper Genie company is working on a Baby Bum Attachment.  Kind of like a poo catcher.  And at the end of the day you'd just take it off and replace it with a new one at bedtime.

Let's be realistic here.  That thing doesn't exist yet.  But let's be more realistic.  When it does exist it'll come with a spot to insert a Glade scented plug-in and a dock to charge your cellphone too.  Then you can listen to your favorite music coming out of your baby's bum like speakers.  And who knows, the little pride n' joy might just shake his booty to the beat.

"Looks like I'm getting a text from my little boy.  Nope.  He just shit himself again."

Stop laughing.  That's terrible. 

A sophisticated little man is allowed to make doo-doo in his pants so long as he's cute about it.

"He needs his bum changed."  Why?  What's wrong with it?  Is it not doing what it's supposed to?  Well, I suppose sometimes it's not.  Have you ever said, "this baby needs a bum change", and then the kid only peed in the diaper?  Well, why would that baby need it's bum changed?  Kids don't pee out of their bums.

"He needs his wiener changed."

Nobody is about to start saying that.  And if you're the one who does start that trend then you should go and get it put on a t-shirt.  The saying.  Not the actual wiener change.  Or both.  Whatever. That's gross.  You're gross.  Stop being so gross, grossy-pants.

If you could actually change your baby's bum, what would you change it to?

"Ayyy, don't call me no bum!"

Would you get the Wal-Mart variety of bums that are cheap or would you feel the need to get an expensive bum endorsed by a celebrity?  "Hi, I'm Angelina Jolie and when I have to change my babies' bums the brand I rely on is Ford.  They make baby bums that are built to last." 

Or instead of celebrities endorsing new baby bums, maybe there would be celebrity molded bums. 

"Are you in the market for a baby bum change?  Are you looking for something a bit more stylish for your baby than the bum they were born with?  Let everyone in town know your baby is the fanciest with the new Jennifer Lopez Baby Bum!  That's right, now your baby can have the same mold of bum that J-Lo had when she was a baby!  Impress your friends!  Raise your child to be neurotic!"

What the fuck.

Oh, I know!  Maybe my lovely wife has been referring to a "Bum Change" as getting a homeless man to change our kid's diaper.  Gosh, that could sure save a lot of time in a day.  And think of the different immunities the kid would develop in the process.

Also, have you heard of these things called "Pee-pee Tee-Pee"?  Apparently, you put it over a baby boy's wiener so you don't get peed on while changing their diaper.  I'm not really buying into it though.  My reflexes are alright. 

Besides, I peed on my dad when I was a baby and we all turned out just fine.  But he rarely ever had to change my diaper.  And as far as I now I still have my original bum.  For now.

- ryan of the ryan fan club