The Daddy Complex

High-res Some day in the near future, this conversation will happen… Boone: Papa, tell us about how you proposed to Mama.Me: Well, son. I was dressed as The Crow.Wyatt: What’s The Crow?Me: It’s a character from a movie… no, wait. It was a comic book first, but they made a movie of it—Boone: What’s a comic book?Me: You know those stories with all the pictures you read on your Read-O-Matic 5000 device?Wyatt: Yes.Me: Those used to come in, like, a floppy magazine form. Anyway, they made a movie of it… I’m getting off track. I was dressed as a guy who comes back from the dead to avenge his lover’s death.Wyatt: So, you thought that was the perfect attire for a marriage proposal.Me: It was kind-of spontaneous.Wyatt: Please tell me this was for Halloween.Me: It was.Boone: What was Mama dressed as?Me: She… um, I don’t know. Some kind of sexy goth librarian or something. Ask her.Wyatt: So, that was the night you guys decided to get married.Me: Uh, no. She didn’t say yes.Boone: But, she obviously did eventually.Me: A year later, yes… Hey, if I were her, I would’ve waited, too.

Some day in the near future, this conversation will happen…

Boone: Papa, tell us about how you proposed to Mama.
Me: Well, son. I was dressed as The Crow.
Wyatt: What’s The Crow?
Me: It’s a character from a movie… no, wait. It was a comic book first, but they made a movie of it—
Boone: What’s a comic book?
Me: You know those stories with all the pictures you read on your Read-O-Matic 5000 device?
Wyatt: Yes.
Me: Those used to come in, like, a floppy magazine form. Anyway, they made a movie of it… I’m getting off track. I was dressed as a guy who comes back from the dead to avenge his lover’s death.
Wyatt: So, you thought that was the perfect attire for a marriage proposal.
Me: It was kind-of spontaneous.
Wyatt: Please tell me this was for Halloween.
Me: It was.
Boone: What was Mama dressed as?
Me: She… um, I don’t know. Some kind of sexy goth librarian or something. Ask her.
Wyatt: So, that was the night you guys decided to get married.
Me: Uh, no. She didn’t say yes.
Boone: But, she obviously did eventually.
Me: A year later, yes… Hey, if I were her, I would’ve waited, too.

High-res johnness: latimes: The princess costume and the trick-or-treat dilemma: Glendora moms face a difficult choice on their son’s choice of holiday garb — protect his independent spirit or his tender feelings? Anna and Louisa remember the sea of “Yes on 8” signs that sprouted around them in 2008, when the measure banning gay marriage was on the ballot. Gay marriage was rejected that year by voters, just months after the couple officially wed on June 17, the first day gay marriage was legal in California. Now, Anna envisions those folks snubbing her trick-or-treating princess-boy. “I imagine that when those Glendorans shut their doors, they’re going to say ‘See, that’s why lesbians shouldn’t raise children.’” Photo: Luc Villeneuve, 4, has asked to go trick-or-treating as a princess. His moms, Anna and Louisa, with twins Jacob and Madeleine, aren’t sure how to respond. Credit: Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times Perfectly normal instinct for a kid, obviously. My daughter was her favorite male clown last year and was — until Wonder Woman made an amazing late surge in the 2011 voting — planning to go as Batman this year. (Via Sprague) I second John’s emotion. And to update the “Tutus Don’t Matter” topic, my boys shifted their attention to Batman (for Boone) and Superman (for Wyatt). I’m totally cool with it, but I’m sad they don’t want to dress as butterflies anymore. It would’ve made a great post.

johnness:

latimes:

The princess costume and the trick-or-treat dilemma: Glendora moms face a difficult choice on their son’s choice of holiday garb — protect his independent spirit or his tender feelings?

Anna and Louisa remember the sea of “Yes on 8” signs that sprouted around them in 2008, when the measure banning gay marriage was on the ballot. Gay marriage was rejected that year by voters, just months after the couple officially wed on June 17, the first day gay marriage was legal in California.

Now, Anna envisions those folks snubbing her trick-or-treating princess-boy.

“I imagine that when those Glendorans shut their doors, they’re going to say ‘See, that’s why lesbians shouldn’t raise children.’”

Photo: Luc Villeneuve, 4, has asked to go trick-or-treating as a princess. His moms, Anna and Louisa, with twins Jacob and Madeleine, aren’t sure how to respond. Credit: Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times

Perfectly normal instinct for a kid, obviously. My daughter was her favorite male clown last year and was — until Wonder Woman made an amazing late surge in the 2011 voting — planning to go as Batman this year.

(Via Sprague)

I second John’s emotion.

And to update the “Tutus Don’t Matter” topic, my boys shifted their attention to Batman (for Boone) and Superman (for Wyatt). I’m totally cool with it, but I’m sad they don’t want to dress as butterflies anymore. It would’ve made a great post.

mammalingo: Today.com and iVillage teamed up to conduct a survey about something near and dear to my heart: Halloween candy. They polled 500 parents and found that 71 percent of parents were guilty of helping themselves to their kids’ “Halloween stash.” There is really only one question: what the hell is wrong with the other 29 percent of parents? Pictured: Bit O’ Honey. The only kind of candy that I don’t steal from my kids. (And anything with peanuts. As you may remember, I’m allergic.)  I think we gave the boys one item each from the candy they collected last year. Considering the trick-or-treating was accidental anyway, they didn’t get much, so it’s not like we were gorging ourselves on a mountain of candy. However, this year we will.

mammalingo:

Today.com and iVillage teamed up to conduct a survey about something near and dear to my heart: Halloween candy. They polled 500 parents and found that 71 percent of parents were guilty of helping themselves to their kids’ “Halloween stash.”

There is really only one question: what the hell is wrong with the other 29 percent of parents?

Pictured: Bit O’ Honey. The only kind of candy that I don’t steal from my kids. (And anything with peanuts. As you may remember, I’m allergic.) 

I think we gave the boys one item each from the candy they collected last year. Considering the trick-or-treating was accidental anyway, they didn’t get much, so it’s not like we were gorging ourselves on a mountain of candy.

However, this year we will.

Tutus Don’t Matter

Remember the Tutus Don’t Matter conversation? It started in April when lifeinmuffyscube asked, “If your boys wanted to wear tutus and paint their nails would you be okay with it and let them?” I answered thusly…

It would be okay, I would let them and I would be there to support them in any way possible because, even if it’s a phase, people can be dicks sometimes. So, I’d want my guys to know they can do whatever they want, but other people might have a problem with it. (As evidence, you should read the Nerdy Apple Bottom post about the massive drama the happened when a mother let her son dress as Daphne from Scooby-Doo for Halloween.)

My main goal as a parent is that my boys are happy and healthy. Tutus don’t even make it onto the list of things I care about.

Well, it looks like I may be taking this topic from the theoretical to the literal… sort of. I’ve been asking my boys what they want to be for Halloween. Their answers fluctuate a bit — cowboy, dinosaur, Lightning McQueen — but the one costume they both always come back to is “butterfly.”

I know in the butterfly world there have to be some dudes. But, I also know they both want to be a butterfly because in the Halloween episode of Go Diego Go! Alicia was dressed as a butterfly. And her costume was pink. (For the record, Diego was a bat.)

They could land on some other costume before Halloween, but I’m already planning on taking two little butterflies around the neighborhood on Halloween. And that’s perfectly cool with me.

(NOTE: My wife pointed out Alicia’s costume was blue, not pink. So, I was wrong about that. However, it was a blue butterfly dress. So… there you go.)

How I Almost Saved Halloween

Halloween is my favorite holiday. Seriously. Last year, for the boys’ first Halloween, I left a horror convention in Vegas early to be able to share the day with them. Did you catch that? I ducked out of a horror convention. In Vegas.

But I’m working full time again, plus we just moved, plus the boys start preschool today and an endless list of other things… the boys’ Halloween costumes for this year just kept getting pushed back on the priority list. They got pushed back until Saturday. So, I simply resigned myself to the fact that they would miss this Halloween and that I’m the shittiest parent who ever lived for not getting my act together enough for my boys dress up and get free candy.

Then, late Saturday night, I had an epiphany: zombies. Zombie costumes are easy. Some rotting makeup, rip some old clothes and you’ve got yourself a brain-eating denizen of the undead. Or in my case, two denizens.

We spent the day running last-minute errands to get the guys ready for preschool and I managed to squeeze in a stop at the drugstore to get some Halloween makeup. Operation Undead Toddlers seemed a go.

Once all our errands were completed, we rushed home, fed them dinner, then set about making them up as zombies which is when Operation Undead Toddlers hit its first and final snag. Have you ever tried to put makeup on a toddler? It’s like trying to tattoo an epileptic. They wouldn’t sit still even for a second. In the end, they looked like mimes that had applied their makeup after a tequila bender.

With great shame, I declared Operation Undead Toddlers a failure. We gave them a bath and watched It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown instead. On a side note, all day the boys wore their superhero shirts. While at the drug store, they also picked out Halloween tote things — the modern version of the plastic jack-o-lantern for collecting candy. As we went from errand to errand, everyone thought they were already dressed and gave them treats. So, they did experience it a bit. Still, after the boys went down, I raided the bowl of candy for trick-or-treaters to eat my pain away.