Kirk blAug

First, you put the baby down in its crib for some rest. Nap time can begin. Then the baby decides it is hungry. So you mix a bottle of formula or prepare some milk. You feed the baby. The baby falls asleep while eating and NOW nap time can begin. But wait. What is that smell? You carefully try to change the baby without waking it up. The baby wakes up. The baby has more room and is hungry again. You feed the baby again. The baby is asleep. Nap time can FINALLY begin. Except now you realize the three-year-old is not napping due to all the noise from the baby. So it goes... There was a point in time when nap time for the boys meant break time for dad. Never again.

I was browsing around Facebook on my phone while I feed Tsunami a bottle early in the morning the other day, when I came across this thread: This is just the sort of thing that makes it seem justifiable for women to be afraid of men. This is also an example of what makes it hard for me to be male without having women assume me guilty until proven innocent. I know that for the most part, these kind of things are said without intended harm, but this misogynist superior male attitude leads down the road to inappropriate touching and rape. As you can see above, some women are just as much to blame. And not only rape, but the kind of rape that people, like Ron Paul, try to justify : MORGAN: Here's the dilemma, and it's one I put to Rick Santorum very recently. I was surprised by his answer, although I sort of understood from his belief point of view that he would come up with this. But it's a dilemma that I am going to put to you. You have two daughters. You have many granddaugh...

Earlier this week I came across this comic from The Oatmeal . It is worth looking at. Go ahead and read it , then come back. I will wait. Okay, back? Good. I thought it did a pretty good job of describing one reason that piracy is growing, so I shared the link on Facebook and Google+ with the following comment: This is why piracy exists. The studios continue to drag their feet at offering competitive or reasonable methods to acquire the media. The studios are just as guilty of the loss incurred by the artist if not more so than the customer who pirates. The artist is also responsible for finding a reliable distributor who is not going to make it difficult for customers to acquire the content. Piracy happens because it has the competitive advantage, not monetarily, but by ease of access. Then later that same night I came across Andy Inatko's blog post commenting on the comic . I thought he had made a few good points in his commentary. His post is also worth the read and I suggest...

Today Chris, Jupiter, Tsunami, and I decided that we would find something to do outside since the weather was supposed to be in the upper 40s to lower 50s. I previously mentioned that we possess a membership to the Missouri Botanical Garden . The membership also gets us into the Butterfly House as well as the Shaw Nature Reserve at no charge. We had not yet been to the Shaw Nature Reserve, so Chris suggested that we check it out. We were all glad that she did. The trail we followed was about a mile hike from where we parked our car, to the lake, and back called the Wolf Run Trail. This trail was generously recommended to us by the kind lady at the desk in the Visitor Center located at the entrance to the reserve. She asked me if Jupiter was an avid walker and how we planned to carry Tsunami on our walk before coming up with the perfect suggestion. When we first got out there we were up on a hill and the 15-20 mph winds made us wonder if walking trails at the reserve was such a good ...

We live near a fire station. Because of this, we get to hear the sirens of firetrucks at all hours. That is the downfall. But Jupiter loves it. He has a fascination for emergency vehicles and loves watching the firetrucks whiz by on their way to a rescue, a fire, or to get a cat out of a tree. The other day he and our dog Bowser were glued to something that was outside our front window. Eventually I got curious as to what was so interesting. When I went to the window to see what they were looking at, I saw a firetruck parked right there in front of the house. Jupiter asked me what it was doing out there. I looked around and did not see any smoke. I saw one firefighter talking on her radio and another one looking up at a tree. I told Jupiter that I was not sure why it was there. I posed a hypothesis or two as to what they might be doing out there. I said that maybe there was indeed a cat in a tree. I also guessed that perhaps they had found a fire hazard that needed to be addressed. Whi...

Another religious tradition that our family likes to celebrate in secular way truly has roots in my former religion, Catholicism. I previously mentioned the celebrating we did for Mardi Gras last weekend, in Soulard, but I felt that going to the Grand Parade today with the kids was a little too crazy from what I had been hearing. At least, I would feel more comfortable with another adult escort, like Chris, with us. This is Chris's on week though, so she is not available. I had heard that Soulard on Mardi Gras was no place for kids, lest they get an early anatomy lesson. I disagree with that idea. I can not think of a better real world example to teach human anatomy to my kids. Learning through experience has always been a better way of educating than an institutionalized method, I argued. Either way, my excuse for skipping it had more to do with the sheer volume of people and traffic in the area. Instead of going down to Soulard to watch the parade, we decided to get a king cake ...

I had told Jupiter that we needed to wait until it snows enough before we can make a snowman. He had been itching to build one since seeing Frosty The Snowman earlier this fall. Up until last night, we had not gotten a significant enough amount of snow to make a "Frosty", as he likes to call it, here in St. Louis. Well, either that or we got the wrong kind of snow or did not have time to make one for some other reason. This is strange to us after moving from Nebraska where there is ample opportunity to build snowmen throughout the season. Today the high is forecasted at 41° F, which meant we probably had just enough time to make a Frosty before the snow mostly melts down later today. It also meant that the snow would be good and soggy which is always best for packing snow in spheres. The next step was obvious. I put Tsunami in his swing near the big window looking out in front of the house. This allowed Jupiter and I set out to build the snowman while I could still keep an e...