Husband Knows Best

I have been so slammed with work and well, work that I have barely had time for the necessities. Today, I finally exited the haze and had a look around. I was horrified with what has happened to my blog. Just looking at the most recent spat of comments brought tears to my eyes. The weepiness was on account of the estrogen that drooled over my mouse-hand as I clicked on the link. I have abandoned my post for too long and as a result, I have a choice to make. I can either change the blog colors to lavender text on a powder pink background, or I can re-stake my territory. Don't worry this will not involve urinating around the perimeter (some one out there must have seen Never Cry Wolf ... what am I saying?!? A movie about a man fighting to survive alone in the wild, probably not).

So here is how we roll ... I will post a male perspective on recent happenings and no one will add comments that involve any of the following:

• Recent or impending purchases
• Baking or recipes
• How skinny any blog participant may look
• Anything to do with fingernails or toenails unless it indicates how they can be effectively employed as a weapon
• Communal encouragement of any kind

Until we all learn to follow these rules, Jessica will be banned from adding to the blog. Okay seriously though, you will be peppered with annoyingly non-female posts

So let's begin - shall we?

#1 - On Saturday Jane was crying too much. Finally she began to cry about losing in hide and go seek. So what is a father to do to resolve this dilemma? Easy - 3 words. "Suck it up." I told her to suck it up and stop crying or stop playing the game. This all happened just as Jessica was breaking in the new babysitter on the Romney routines. I could tell by the sideways glance I got from my wife that she was a bit embarrassed and wouldn't have chosen my method of instruction. I could tell by the big eyes on Jane that she either didn't quite understand the phrase or was a little concerned with the new sheriff in town. But guess what ... no more crying

#2 - If I wanted to I could torture my wife. I am not talking about run-of-the-mill annoying my wife (even though I have "skillz" in that arena as well). I am talking about Jack Bower style inflicted pain.

How would I do this? It would proceed as follows. Wait for her to be invited to do almost anything, go to lunch with a friend, attend a book club, participate in a baby shower, etc. (really any social gathering will do). Then I would orchestrate another group of her closest 25 friends to invite her to an alternate social activity for the exact same time. She cannot refrain from participating. She never could. So on Saturday she had already scheduled a "cook day" where she made 8 meals at the same time we were having family Christmas cookie day, which happened to be on the family house cleaning day. So when my sister called and informed me that she wanted to invite Jessica and Emma to her yearly holiday Nutcracker excursion, I knew just what to do. I politely declined on her behalf and told Heather that I would be sure to let Jessica know about the invitation. As promised, after all the baking was finished and the ballet was long since over I told Jessica about the invitation. "I wish I would have known" she lamented "I could have fit that in." "No you couldn't honey, I know you think you could, which is precisely why I shielded you from making the mistake of trying to" I informed her.

Unfortunately, my post does include references to baking, crying and ballet, but I think Jack Bower ought to cancel that out.