Cast Iron, the choice of real men and grandmothers

The facts on Cast Iron, it's awesome and cheap. There is no denying this. Cast Iron pans are like the cockroaches of cookware. Think about it, did Viggo Mortensen cook his last can of beanie weenies in All-Clad in that horribly depressing movie before eating his son? Of course not, that crap isn't going to survive a nuclear fall out. (was any of that a spoiler?)

Snakehead Invasion

Bad news fatherfolkers. There is an actual thing called a Snakehead fish, and it is here. Maybe even in your home.

Snakehead Fact: Snakehead fish can grow to be up to 40 motherfucking pounds. To give you something to compare that to, imagine a fish with a horrifying snakehead, weighing as much as Gary Coleman. Now imagine me crying uncontrollably.

The Snakehead (Channa Micropeltis Motherfuckis), is native of South East Asia. It first arrived in the United States in order to play half of a buddy cop duo for the film "Rush Hour 4" playing opposite Owen, or Luke Wilson. The Snakehead ate the Wilson, the one with the weird nose, not the squinty one, and escaped into a river. Scientists now say that Snakeheads are reproducing in the wild. Do you get that? Not only are these things swimming around in the lakes and rivers, they are also fucking in our water supply.

These bastards breath air. With primitive lungs. AIR. That means they could literally walk to your house at night, climb the stairs to your bedroom, and eat you. Here are several useful questions from the Haggis-on Whey book, Animals of the Ocean that will help to determine if you are in fact being eaten by a Snakehead fish or another sea creature:

1. Are any of my limbs missing?
2. Is a beak like mouth eviscerating my organs?
3. Am I lightheaded and also drinking my own blood?
4. Am I inside an animals stomach?

If you answered yes to one or more of these questions you are likely being eaten.

According to Bill Cochran of the Roanoke Times, Maryland has offered a bounty for dead Snakeheads. $10 for snakeheads under 12 inches; $25 for snakeheads 13-24 inches; $50 for snakeheads over 24 inches.

He Said, She Said: Talking to your kids about sex

JR: This subject really hits home for me considering I have a 13-year-old Drama Queen (D.Q.) at home. I’ve already made it through the Kotex talk and have taken her to purchase her first bra(s), so I’ve tackled two important steps on the way to the birds and bees.

My mom has informed me (via my daughter) that D.Q. needs to start shaving her legs. If she’s ready to shave her legs I’m not entirely sure that I want to know what else is going on with her. Being a full-time single father raising a teenage daughter can be tricky at times and it often feels like walking on a minefield.

There’s no one right way to have “The Talk” with your child—each child is different and that has to be taken into consideration as you prepare yourself. There are definitely some wrong ways to have the talk, but no one definitive “Right Way”.

How the hell does a single father talk with his sarcastic, eye-rolling, attitude strutting daughter? I could just let her watch TV. God knows there’s enough sex going on there. Maybe I could just have her to watch Zoey 101 on Nick and tell her to figure out why the show ended up so abruptly.

P.S. It was because Jamie Lynn Spears became a baby mama. She and her boyfriend were playing a game of Vatican Roulette* and lost.

Book Review: Book Dad Reviews I Am Not Weird

I Am Not Weird! by Haley Metzger and RayeLynn Banks

Reviewed by: Chris Singer

Cross posted from: bookdads.com

About the Authors:

Haley lives in Marietta, Georgia with her parents and sister and brother. She recently completed first grade, and is a first-time published author.

RayeLynn is Haley’s grandmother and writing guide. She is also the director of an inclusionary preschool in Atlanta.

About the Book:

Haley, a first grader, never thought of herself as different because she has cerebral palsy. When a new classmate told her she was weird because she wore braces and walked funny, Haley was upset. She did not know what to do or what to say as a response. With help from her parents and grandmother, Haley decided to write a book explaining that she was not weird – cerebral palsy is not weird. In the book, Haley tells what cerebral palsy means and tells all that she can do anything, just like everyone else. Haley brought her book to school and it was read to the class to help the children understand. Haley is proud of herself and hopes her book will help others to understand cerebral palsy.

My Take on the Book:

This is a great idea for a book to help educate children about what it’s like to live with any disability, not just cerebral palsy. This book has terrific photos which show Haley participating in lots of physical activities, and indeed shows that Haley can do anything anyone else can do. I give Haley and her parents a lot of credit for taking a really uncomfortable and disturbing bullying situation at school and turning it into such a positive experience! I love the message of determination and self-empowerment throughout the book and even though I’ve never met Haley, I can tell she must be an extremely positive and inspiring girl.

I would highly recommend this book for parents, family members and teachers who might need a resource to help education children about cerebral palsy.

Recently, Haley went through a very difficult medical procedure called Selective Dorsal Rhizotomy (SDR). Cerebral Palsy causes Haley to have a lot of spasticity (stiffness) in her trunk and leg muscles. Spasticity interferes with her range of motion and speed of movement. It can inhibit muscle growth and can cause muscle contractures and permanent orthopedic deformities. This neurosurgical procedure can reduce spasticity permanently and improve motor activities for Haley!

He Said, She Said: Breast Feeding

Here’s how were gonna roll with this—Aaron gave us a topic and I’m gonna start out, then e-mail what I have to Jamie. She’s gonna respond and we will see where it goes from there. I honestly see this going back and forth a whole bunch of couple times, so I will try and keep this short. My part will be noted as “JR” and hers will be “SMS” for her blog Single Mom Survives.

The Vegetable Truck: Lying to My Children

Cross Posted from ironicmom

When our twins were born, my husband and I were in year four of a five-year-stint in Thailand. As you can imagine, there were a plethora of noises in Bangkok, most of which assaulted our ears with video-game intensity. Sounds reverberated off skyscrapers the way noises echo in a canyon.
My husband and I talked about recording our own Bangkok Symphony, but we were too lazy. Had we done so, though, such a composition would have included the following:

• the insidious jingle of the ice cream truck, over and over again and again,
• the rhythmic pinging of the blind man’s reebar-cane as he hiked the streets selling lotto tickets,
• the souped-up, four-stroke motorcycle taxis that broke the speed of sound, and
• the discordant squawk of the loud speaker as the vegetable truck offered its wares.

It sounds exotic until it ceases to stop.
Once we got the 2-for-1 deal on our babies, however, our tolerance for external noise increased. We had our own indoor cacophony.
Fast forward two years.
We moved back to Canada, where the loudest sounds in our suburb were garage doors humming closed, lawn mowers sparking to life, and the occasional ice cream truck.
Whenever the ice cream truck circled our suburb, belting out “It’s a Small World After All,” our kids would ask what that sound was.
Each time, we answered the same: “It’s the vegetable truck.”
We first uttered this refrain when our twins were two.
By the time they were five, they’d say, “The vegetable truck’s coming.” Then they’d continue playing, unmoved by the thought of door-to-door turnips.

What kind of parent convinces their children this is a vegetable truck?

This brings us to a few weeks after their sixth birthday.
“Mom, the vegetable truck’s actually stopping,” Vivian said. She and William opened our back door and climbed onto the patio table, giving them a direct view over our fence. If you remember the sitcom Home Improvement, think Wilson on stilts.
“Jenna’s getting vegetables!” William announced.
I watched Jenna, our neighbour, disappear behind the truck.
A moment passed. My lie hung in the summer air.
The ice cream truck and its ditty started up the street.
Jenna walked down the sidewalk, ice cream in hand.
Vivian and William muttered to each other before screaming, “Mom!”
And the myth disappeared faster than the jingle.
Add this to the list of things our kids can tell their therapists in a decade.

*

Any lies out there? ice cream stories?

Veggie Baby

Originally posted by Exaughsdad: http://exhausdad.com/2010/08/30/veggie-baby/

My daughter is a vegetarian. There, I said it. We haven’t fed her an ounce of meat to date and will not in the future. For those of you who know us personally, this is no surprise because you know that my wife and I have been vegetarians for more than half of our lives.

Most people don’t think too much about food, know where it comes from, or the environmental costs of producing and transporting flawless produce around the globe. They simply go to the grocery store and buy what they’ve always bought. Eat what they’ve always eaten. Do what they’ve always done. My wife and I, and a growing number of people on the other hand, have put a great deal of thought and effort into what we put on our plates, and it is no different concerning our daughter. During the pregnancy, we knew we needed to learn more about the nutritional needs of a baby generally, and a vegetarian baby specifically. So we did. I could open up a used-bookstore with all the books we’ve read on the subject. We also discussed it with our pediatrician, expecting to meet some resistance, but instead received his full and unwavering support.

Building a Birth Plan: the post in which we stray dangerously close to daddy blogging territory

Fatherfolk is not a daddy blog. I don't mean any derision. I think that there is a brave and growing chorus of dads out there talking about their experience as father's openly. One great example of this is the guys over at dadrevolution.com who I admire very much. Fatherfolk is something different. We believe without a trace of irony that in order to be a good father, you need to live a rich and interesting life. You need to be able to accurately describe the sensation of eating a sheep's head and list several items in great detail that vet tech's have removed from insides animals intestines. You need to know how to brew your own beer. We are a lifestyle resource. That being said, we will from time to time indulge in some navel gazing of our own when it feels important.

In which we open a window into our editorial process and slam it down accidentally onto our sons' penises.

So you have probably been asking yourself, "how do Blake and Aaron run such a great blog, and still manage to hold down their mediocre low paying jobs?" Well, the answer is that we have a super efficient editorial process based on cutting edge technology and the moments between soccer practice and diaper changes. We have decided to open a window into this process, so that you can learn from it. Below is an actual conversation, which for tax purposes will be referred to as a  business meeting from this point forward.  In it, we discuss geopolitics, world religion, and the difference between fatherfolking and daddy blogging.