Baby Borrowers: Bad TV or Free Baby-Sitting?

Tonight The Baby Borrowers is premiering on NBC tonight - soon. Five teenage couples each take care of a baby, then a toddler, then a pre-teen, then a teenager, and then someone who is elderly. Relationships are tested, words are exchanged, and diapers are not...

Suffice to say, I won't be watching. Father Goof is no fan of reality TV to begin with, and this sounds truly dreadful (although a bit of schadenfraude watching other people suffer through parenthood does seem in order).

But what got me is Washington Post TV critic Tom Shales wrote, "...we don't get to know enough about the kinds of couples who would lend their infants to a piece of exploitainment like this..."

Quite frankly, that's a no brainer: Parents who want free baby-sitting!

The producers do not want the infants to die on them and will intervene on that front if necessary. If (as the posted video teaser suggests) the teenagers can't get the kids to sleep - so what? That's their problem (and in the meantime, I would have slept fine without a baby crying every few hours). The baby will sleep on his/her return.

Catch of the Day

It is a beautiful day and somehow I did not get outside. My work did not go well. So when I got home I asked my son if he would please play some ball with me. He didn't really want to. But I begged him.

It was buggy and he complained about all the mosquito bites, but I pitched and he humored me by pretending to be flummoxed by my change-up (the drop in speed from 12 mph to 8 mph really throws him).

While we were at it, he told me about camp (it's his second day - much better than the first, which was also good.) I thanked him for making my day.

The things he has to do to for his parents!

The Handy Man Can & The Field of Nightmares

I am not a bad husband, overall. I have my strengths and my weaknesses, but when asked, my wife's big complaint about me is how completely and utterly "unhandy" I am with tools. I do not build, fix, or repair anything. My father-in-law was a regular McGyver and his yard is a treasure trove of decaying tools, inventions, and jury-rigged devices of uncertain origin - or, as my children call them, "toys."

My father can also fix things, but I did not inherit this, despite his efforts to teach me. I believe that I was a poor student because as a southpaw, I am at disadvantage in attempting to repair right-handed devices - just another way rightey keeps us down!

So I am sending her (through the very private medium of this blog) this recent Washington Post article about Jim Scardina who's -

entire front yard is a baseball field. With dugouts, bleachers, even a concession stand.

Piece by piece during the past 10 years, Scardina has built the field from scratch, to the astonishment of his neighbors, the disapproval of his wife and the delight of his son....

But it didn't stop with grass on the outfield. Scardina started working on accessories: A bathroom so players wouldn't have to hike all the way to the house. Bleachers and a concession stand for the kids.

Then one day, Michelle Scardina noticed a big shed being erected beside the house. At the time, they were using a tractor to mow the grass on their 10-acre lot. "A storage shed for the tractor, that's how he explained it," she said.

But within months, the tractor shed had somehow transformed into a $100,000 winter baseball training facility with a bathroom, shower, kitchen and office. Two batting cages were installed with 90-mph pitching machines. An area to the side served as a mini-infield for the boys to run drills.

This will be a quick lesson that she should be careful what she wishes for. I have lots of big ideas. Recently I've been considering a catapult system to send the kids to school so I don't have to drive carpool, but I can't find a good contractor.

But since my primary medium is words, the biggest danger my wife faces is that I'll start another blog. The pen may be mightier then the sword, or hammer, or even the lathe. Perhaps my words will change the world. But they won't clutter up the yard (although my office is a wreck.)

Father's Day Finances: Mamawala

One last Father's Day gift - my wife, after talking to her mom handed me some cash. I looked at her quizzically - not that I mind being handed cash.

"It's from my mama," she explained. Although of course I am grateful that my mother-in-law likes me, this is, however, a worrisome sign that her usual good sense is failing.

But here is the thing, it was my wife's money - and we basically pool our money so what was I given exactly?

My wife shook her head, "Just take it - my mama said to do this so we have to do it."

Suddenly I understood the hawala system, one of the informal financial network used by diaspora communities to transfer money. The system works entirely on trust, one broker will release money strictly on the say-so of a broker on the other side of the world.

Mamacita is running her own network, and I'd best go along with the mamawala.




So what will I do with my good fortune? I'll take my inspiration from former major league pitcher Tug McGraw, who, when he was asked how he would spend his $75,000 salary (this was 1975) said, "Ninety percent I'll spend on good times, women and Irish whiskey. The other 10 percent I'll probably waste."

I'll do like good old Tug McGraw, an old, sluggish, married Tug McGraw who needs to be up early the next morning.

Father's Day Card Update

Below (no link, just scroll down) my I wrote about my daughter's disturbing Father's Day card. Bouncing her on my knee this morning, I asked her about it again.

"Sweetheart, why did you make the person on the Father's Day card all bloody?"

"Daddy, I did it to make you freak out."

Well, it kind of worked.

Father's Day Cards: Portrait by an Artist as a Red Man

So my kids made me Father's Day cards - pretty standard stuff (and as such, painfully sweet.) My son's card had a picture of my pitching to him, his drawing of my face had black magic marker blotches because I hadn't shaved. Great!

My daughter (she's four) made a card featured below.*



After my son explained his card, I asked my daughter about her work. She explained, "That's a bloody man."

"Oh."

"The sun, the clouds, all bloody," she continued.

"Daddy, maybe it is from that time you had a lot of nosebleeds and got blood on everything," my son suggested helpfully.

I learned my lesson - never ask an artist to explain his or her own work, just appreciate the spirit that went into it.

One source may have been some of our recent reading. Their Trotskyite grandfather gave them Big Bird's RED BOOK, with its focus on the need for discipline and monster/child unity in order to prevail in the class struggle (Mr. Hooper is obviously a symbol of bourgeois control over the means of production - particularly of milkshakes). Still, politics aside, Big Bird puts it best when he says, "Red is a very beautiful color. I think you're going to like it."

*Astute readers may have noticed my daughter's card was signed with an "E" that she made herself. It is the first letter of her name. Recently, when I was catching up on some work, she expressed the opinion that my boss was making me work too hard. She announced that she was "Going to write him a letter!"

She made a neat card, with lots of drawings and when I opened it up, inside was a big letter "E."

Brevity is the soul of wit.