Bridgette and I spent our Saturday at the hospital attending an all-day birthing seminar. It was pretty good stuff; we got lots of helpful information, watched some eyebrow-raising videos, and breathed in strange new ways. On the way out, I grabbed a pamphlet filled with information on parenting complete with helpful illustrations.

Since I believe in the free exchange of inaccurate information, I will now use the forum of my blog to impart my newfound wisdom to you, the gape-mouthed masses.

PARENTING AND YOU
A Journey Into The Infinite

Senior Prom is undoubtedly an exciting time in a young person’s life. If one isn’t careful, however, the prom experience might end with the greatest awkwardness of all – the birth of a human child. Take preventative steps by limiting yourself to one slow dance.

The 5-minute wait for the results from your pregnancy test can be a real drag. Try passing the time with a handheld Yahtzee game or by pinpointing the precise moment your life went awry.

Pregnant? Congratulations, you have preserved a trace of your genetic seed! As a man, the next 9 months will represent a challenging balancing act for you. Your partner will be suffering tremendously as your squirmy little offspring gestates inside her. Your role is to encourage her, support her, and tell her that she must immediately continue respackling the nursery ceiling if it’s going to get finished in time for the baby.

The birth of a child is a mostly unremarkable event of which little is known. However, once you and your partner have been discharged from the hospital, it is traditional for the new mother to give a horsey back ride to a sister or close female friend.

Ready or not, you’re a new parent! Understandably, there will be a period of adjustment as you and your partner figure out how to fill your taxing new roles. As such, be ready to be patient with your wife if you return home from work to find your pot roast not yet fully prepared.

*blink* It’s over! Your children are raised and have moved out of your house! Now all that remains is for you and your partner to hobble through the remainder of your days paying for their college education until your life functions are terminated by the state. Who says empty nesters can’t have fun?

As you know, the start of school is always a hectic chapter in a young man’s life. It’s a period when free time is limited and stress-related diarrhea is copious. My week has been a frenzied rush of lesson planning, windsprints, and hot-headed recriminations leveled at passersby.

The energy level needed to get through my days intact is such that I’ve had difficulty sleeping. Last night I straddled a fire hydrant and spit at stray dogs until collapsing at 5am. I awoke two hours later naked in my garage. My neighbors are the best.

In addition, I’m chaperoning a middle school retreat on Thursday and Friday, spending a night in a cabin with a bunch of 11 & 12 year olds. This is exactly as fun as it sounds.

On the plus side, KFC is about to release their latest abomination against the natural law, the breadless Double Down Chicken Sandwich.

I’ll see you guys out behind the KFC. I’ll be the guy collecting spare change and muttering swear words.

Hey gang, guess what day it is? It’s the first day of school, 2009-style!

Let us frolic and twist and run rings round the mirthberry bush!

Take my hand as we leap through the fairydust sprinkles into the pond of spaniel dreams!

Let’s close our eyes and hold our breath under the strawberry-scented waters and imagine the sweet ecstacy it would be to have New York Times columnist and Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman rub his fuzzy, elitist beard across our pure, snow-white bellies while George Will looks on in envy!

School is where we find our friends and where we feast on the Food of Sorrows! School is where we grade papers and grope cherubs! Most importantly, school is where I have to tuck in my shirt!

Abraham Lincoln never went to school!

Yay school!

Here’s this bit of truth from p. 245 of my middle school World History textbook:

That’s right kids.

Some people eat ice cream cones. Other people play the piano. Some people are murdered.

Look at that guy. He looks like a 14th century European peasant to me. Probably named Roland or some crap like that. Did he deserve to get murdered? Probably not. Just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Now there’s maggots all over him.

That’s history for you. That’s life.

What do you think he thought that morning when he pulled on his green tunic with yellow polka dots? “Well sure, this isn’t the most fashionable outfit I’ve got, but it’s only Sunday. I probably won’t even leave the house today.”

How’d that turn out for him? Now he’s dead. Think about that next time you get dressed.

Welcome to World History class.

So Brett Favre has signed with the Vikings.

Looks like I have some post-rationalizing to do.

Lots of it.

Lots and lots of it.

On Sunday, while shooting one of the more twisted Rock TVs we’ve ever put together (coming this Halloween), our friends Ted and Gina presented Bridgette and I with a gift for our son (coming this World Egg Day).

It was, I dare say, the best gift ever given since 824 AD, when King Louis the Pious of France received a porcelain jar filled with silk-shrouded monkey testicles from the Muslim caliph at Baghdad.

Gina had hand-knitted a Pastortron 9000 doll.

Crafted with precision, fashioned with care, and wrapped in pastel tissue paper, this doll made my bowels rumble with glee. I turned the doll over in my hands and marveled at its detail and accuracy. I refused to relinquish it for several hours, though Bridgette did forbid me from taking it into the bathroom with me.

Eventually, I went and laid Pastortron 9000 into my son’s crib with care, along with his soon-to-be friends, Pickles the Dog and Racism the Owl.

There, Pastortron 9000 will wait patiently for our little boy. Once he arrives, he will hush him softly to sleep and wipe away the child’s tears with his clumsy, useless claws. While the baby sleeps, Pastortron will struggle with low self-esteem and feelings of rejection.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Pastortron 9000 – godfather to our son.