So, there was an ultrasound this morning.

It’s a girl.

Later the ultrasound will go up so everyone can admire Sarah Felicia in all her glory. My mom was very happy. I told her “So now you can tell everyone.” She replied “Now I can buy girly things!” That’s my mom.

We told Liam this evening. Showed him the ultrasound pic, asked what he thought it was. He didn’t know. So I told him it was a baby. Then I asked whose baby he thought it was. He named both my sisters and a family friend first. Then I told him it was mine and that he was going to be a big brother. He gave me a thumbs up. Then I said it was a little sister. He facepalmed. Seriously. But he seems rather okay with it and was overall just kind of blase about all of it. It was far easier than I’d thought it would be. He’s since asked when she was coming out but no other questions. He’s gonna be a great big brother.

We love Liam, but there are days when we roll our eyes at God and ask, “Oh Lord, how hell did two super smart people end up with such a fucking idiot for a child?” Then we remember he is nine. Then sometimes I say it’s normal because he has a penis. (Sorry guys, but it’s true, you are ruled by the whims of your hormones, even more so than us women.) Then I realize it doesn’t really matter, because he is ours and we love him.

I rant because he tends to be a loud mouth idiot who babbles on for hours about crap he lacks any understanding of to people who really don’t care, don’t want to hear it, or that he should be paying attention rather than the other way around. We haven’t told him of the baby. He isn’t stupid by any means, even if he has some learning problems mostly in delayed abilities because he was between 1 and 3 months premature. (I’ll talk about idiot doctors soon enough, but that’s another post) Right now when Brad and I need to talk about it, we either YIM from across the room or when other family members are present it is referred to as the new pet. We’ve decided to wait until we know the sex of the baby to tell him, that way he can say with confidence that he is having a brother or sister. Of course, I am totally dreading the thought of him asking how the baby came to be. I do NOT need to be having THE TALK with my ten year old son. That’s Brad’s job.

That is right ladies, gents, men, women and hopefully not too many young ladies because I really wish you could have lived a hell of a lot more of your life before be needing this sort of blog.

I am Brad, your blogmaster and all around administrator. Aside from being a stay at home dad for at least another seven years I am a blogger and author.

Katy is my wife and if you hadn’t guessed is preggers, knocked up, in a family way, has a bun in the oven, renting out her guest womb, lost the immunity challenge, showing signs of a man juice infection, spinning off a wholly owned subsidiary, protesting the Chinese government, bought a three month pass to the morning sickness express, had the fucking pill quit working, and in all other very specific terms pregnant.

I am just waiting to hear how she will introduce me now. All things aside I love her, our son Liam, and what ever we end up calling this one besides “The New Pet“. I am a father, I know how we got into this situation and I am 50% responsible, so I will do my job.

Sometimes you have to not take yourself so seriously and do something fun.  That is what memes were meant for.

Lryics Meme

This Meme Originated at Clemency’s LiveJournal.

Guess the titles of the songs the lyrics are taken from.

POINT SYSTEM:
Title of the song = 1 point
Song title and artist = 2 points
Artist only = no point

If you get at least 10 points, you may post your own lyrics quiz in your LJ.

1. I’ve been trying to be where you are.
2. And these mistakes you’ve made, you’ll just make them again.
3. Park that car, drop that phone, sleep on the floor, dream about me.
4. Oh, I am young but I have aged, waited long to seize the day.
5. You don’t know how lovely you are.
6. Son, fear is the heart of love.
7. Sometimes the hardest thing and the right thing are the same.
8. I am looking, looking for something, can’t quite put my mind at ease.
9. You drove me to places I’ll never forget.
10. Wake up, it’s no use pretending.
11. I know there’s no such thing as painless love.
12. I try not to fall for make believe, but what is reality?
13. Everything she does is beautiful; everything she does is right.
14. It will be clear if I wake up and you’re still here with me in the morning.
15. Sometime yesterday, there was another way of dreaming.
16. I won’t be there to break your sweet heart.
17. The final word in the final sentence you ever uttered to me was love.
18. I know you’re sad even though you say that you’re not.
19. I’m propelled by fear and not the righteous.
20. How can I see when I am blind to all the same old thoughts now? Read the rest of this entry »

[ad]In the blogosphere there are two types of blogs, the ones that you control and the ones that leave you beholden to someone else.  You can make money on both kinds if you are savvy enough, but there is always a risk in attempting to make money on a free account.  if it violates there terms of service, then you shouldn’t have tried from the start.  Even if it doesn’t violate the TOS, many of the programs you can use on those free services are sketchy at best.  In the end if you are serious about blogging for money you want your own domain and a reliable hosting company.

You can buy your domain anywhere, but for hosting I highly reccomend that you go with Host Gator.

Before anyone says yuck or puts on their perverse thinking cap, you need to throw the used baby wipe in thw washer and dryer to clean them first.  I have tried three or four generic brands and they alll came through perfectly.  I honestly didn’t start out to test this, but when you use cloth diapers for the baby inevitibly you will wash more than few of these.  My first indication that they would be good for anything was when I pulled a load out of the drier and needed something to wipe up the laundry detergent i spilled.  I grabbed a washed and dried baby wipe, cleaned up the mess and tossed it back into the washer.

I wash mine with standard Sun liquid laundry detergent and a scoop of Borax, and they always come out fine.  I can’t speak for any other brands but I don’t see why that would matter.  I have washed in all temperatures with no degradation.  Chlorine bleach may have an effect on the wipes, but I so rarely use it I haven’t noticed.  I also haven’t noticed any extra lint in the dryer trap either so we seem to be good there.

Here is my list of ten uses for used baby wipes”

10) Excellent for cleaning up liquid spills.  They are very absorbent.

9) The are tougher than paper towels when something disposable is desirable.  I clean the top of my stove and inside my microwave with them
Softer and stronger than Kleenex or other tissues.  When you really need to blog the last thing you want is to put a hole in it.  They would probably work well if you have been on the pot a lot and need something soft to wipe your own arse with too.

7)Shoe Polish Cloth.  I admit I don’t polish my shoes often ever, but i did use one of these to apply a little polish to my boots and buffed out a few big scuffs.

6) Polish cloth.  After the boots I used another few to rub in the mink oil and conditioner on my leather jacket.  Any sort of other cloth would have had to be tossed to with as bad as that stuff smells.

5) Glass cleaning.  I did my mirrors, TV, and computer monitor with a cleaned wipe and windex and it worked great.

4) disposable cloth.  I really scrubbed some spots in my bathroom that were just disgusting and these used wipes held up welll and were easily disposed and since I had already used them all once or twice before didn’t feel bad about using lots of them.

3)Though i haven’t tried it car detailing should be a breeze with used wipes.  Everything from polishing chrome to wiping up Armor All

2) Shop Cloth  I have a pile of these that I have already taken to the garage to use as lint free clothes for all sorts of finishing work.

1) The inevitable spit up and messes your baby will be the cause of.  Not everything requires a fresh baby wipe so long as it is clean.

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I found my way to Josh’s site, COMPULSIVE SODAHOLIC-KINDA EXTRA-ORDINARY? SEE FOR YOURSELF!, this morning and was pleased to see a twelve year old reader.

He loves watching the shows Buffy and Veronica Mars. He also reads a lot of books including Harry Potter and Hardy Boys

That said he couldn’t get into Agatha Christie.  That is no big surprise, her works have become very dated.  Here are a few of my recommendations:

Enders Game by Orson Scott Card:  This is the story set sometime in future, I always get the feeling of at least a century past present.  Young kids are monitored from birth to assess their potential for military careers in the IF to defend earth against a third invasion by an alien race known as the Buggers.

Tithe, Valiant, and Ironside by Holly Black:  For people who like Buffy or Harry Potter’s world in which the supernatural is real and in plain sight whether you recognize it for what it is or not, Holly paints a similar view of the world for the page in the three novels.

More closed contemporary fantasy world where humans simply ignore the supernatural can be found in the likes of Charles de Lint’s works, especially those involving the fictional town of Newford.  There are a number of books in this series that are especially written for YA audiences, though I enjoyed them as an adult and fan of the series.  Blue Girl and Little Grrl are are among my favorites of the YA books.

Open contemporary fantasy novels, where humans know the supernatural exists, are available too.  Patricia Brigg’s Mercy Thompson series is the the only one that isn’t really filled with sex.  The sex filled novels of Anita Blake’s Merry Gentry are really good, but probably not appropriate for everyone.

Other really good teen reads include

1632 by Eric Flint:  The whole series revolves around a small West Virginia town that gets thrown back in time to the early 1630’s and shifted to Germany.  The whole series is great and there is an good opportunity for writing officially sanctioned fan fiction.

Honor Harrington by David Weber:  This is one of the best series I have ever read period.  If you like stories about space, war or the military in general this is going to rock your world.  Including the short story anthologies written by some big names in fiction this series is now well over a dozen books.

Cross Time series by Harry Turtledove:  Is a great series alternate history stories written for teens, but because Harry is as imaginative as always a good read for anyone who likes to ask “what if?”

Oceans on the Sea of Time by S.M. Stirling: follows the adventures of the Nantucket Islanders thrown back in time to 1500 BC.

Dies The Fire by S.M. Stirling:  This is really the same series as Oceans on the Sea of Time, but follows the world, namely the Pacific Northwest,  after the event that through Nantucket back in time.  Guns, cars, electric appliances and basically anything that requires high compression or electricity stops working.

If anyone can think of more please feel free to add them to the list