Randomness Inspired by My Weekend

• If you're a newer parent, my wish for you is this: May your children learn the hard lesson of vomiting early. Inexperienced children with stomach disorders is not a fun or clean situation.
• Monthly poker with the boys rarely has much to do with poker.
• 'Someday You'll Find Her, Charlie Brown' should have been titled 'You're a Stalker Now, Charlie Brown.'
• I've often been confused about Peppermint Patty, whether she's a boy or a girl. I know she's supposed to be a girl, but… there are moments where I pause.
• Further parenting advice: If you have a child that isn't yet potty trained and you're running low on baby wipes, don't think for a second that using toilet paper will be an acceptable solution. Toddlers have a sixth sense about many things. If you're out of wipes, a chemical reaction inside your child's digestive track will be triggered causing the resulting diaper fill to be larger than the diaper can hold, somewhat loose, and at the same time super sticky to everything concerned. Toilet paper, though it works on normal human beings, will not work on toddlers.
• Other things children have a sixth sense about: Your need to use the bathroom, have "special alone time" with your spouse, important paperwork you need to concentrate on, and phone conversations that shouldn't be interrupted.
• We're not a Superbowl type of family. We typically try to get a sitter on those Sundays so we can enjoy mostly empty restaurants and movie theaters. This year we settled for Barney and X-Files DVDs.
• We missed church due to a sick child and the resulting lack of sleep. I tried to enjoy a Sunday morning news variety show, but a huge portion of their content was focused on football. I'm pretty sure their usual audience doesn't follow much football. I don't usually watch the political talking heads that follow either, but they too were talking football instead of politicians. Isn't this what they call schlepping for ratings?
• If you have one sick kid but cook the usual number of pancakes on a Sunday morning, you will end up eating something hobbits refer to as "second breakfast." You'll usually end up skipping lunch too.
• Gage still refuses to call me Papa (which is what Owen has always called me) or any other variation of Dad, Father, or Daddy. He does make quite an effort to say french fries and McDonald's. Sitting alone with him on the couch yesterday, everyone else napping, he points out the window at our car and says, "Ah-onaldssss," which means McDonald's. At first, I didn't really follow what he was saying, and every time I told him such he repeated his slurred word loudly. For about five minutes, I was laughing hysterically, which I really, really needed.