So I came across this quote recently: “K-Fed Continues Campaign For Father Of The Year …”

Wow! Totally amazing. So what has he done? Adopted more third-world kids than Brangelina? Volunteered for milk duct transplants so that he can breast feed his newborns? Founded a program to help reduce the plight of single mothers across America?

No, no, no: “Federline has been a model citizen - spending time with his four children, staying in at night…”

It’s so funny to me when dads are praised for do what they are supposed to do. “Ooh, ooh, ooh, look at me, I’m spending time with my kids.” Bullshit.

Along with the strict no shoes in the play area policy enforced by baby cafés, I think there is another item the establishments should consider banning… low-rise jeans.

Yes, I know it’s extremely fashionable and yes, I know that these cafés mostly exist in hip neighborhoods where fashion choice precedes common sense, but come on.

The pants were designed for the hoards of fashionable babyless women that exist. Think fashion week thin, not playground plump.

I know it’s hard to believe and I know you want to quickly get back into the swing of things postpartum, but moms these jeans are very impractical attire for baby wrangling.

Whenever I visit one of these cafés, I come away seeing more crack than at a plumbers’ convention. I’m certain there are other ways to proclaim your hipness than by wearing butt cracking jeans that look as silly as the faces you make at your newborn.

Now that I’ve said that I have to figure out a way that I can shed some poundage off my hairy daddy legs so that I may squeeze myself into my new made-to-look-old super skinny, ball chaffing slim-fits.

Once I get them on I wont be able to bend low enough to pick my toddler up off the floor without ruining the prospects of future children, but boy will I look like a totally hot cock-rocker trying.

Some people bring out the crazy in me. Especially when they doubt my son’s smarts. Don’t do the shit, or I’ll get all crazy on your ass.

Not crazy like Mel Gibson crazy, or Michael Richards crazy. I’ll most likely just switch from Mr. Cool to Mr. Crazyassretaliatingdad.

What am I rambling about? Parents. Parents I encounter. Parents with whom my son tries to communicate but who dismiss his attempts at speaking ‘adult’ as prattle. I hate it. I hate it mostly because I make earnest attempts to communicate with every kid I encounter.

I think that if they are trying to be social with adults, then it’s the adults’ responsibility to meet them half way. Dumb yourself down a little.

To me you’re not that important, I don’t care about your profession or how large your apartment is or the weather we’re having. But to a child your response is very important. And to me your response is paramount if that child is mine. Remember… me crazy.

I really wanted to blast the particular persons by name in this forum, or retaliate in some other way for the brush-of they gave my son. But my wife suggested that if I did that I’d just be telling the world how crazy I am.

World. Don’t mess with my boy, ’cause I will turn into Mr. Crazy.

Then again, maybe I should just not care.

It was 9am (approximately) and my son’s breathing was labored. My wife and I were forced to make a judgment call on his behalf: Visit the E.R. now, since his pediatrician’s office is not open on Sundays? Or brave out the day and run the risk of hitting the emergency room on its most busy night to jostle with the other parents that decided the same in order to catch the attention of the triage nurse?

We opted for the former.

Upon arrival it seemed that our choice was the correct one, as before we could fully complete the sign-in sheet we were waved into triage by the attending nurse and then escorted to pediatric E.R. My son was given a check-up by a jovial resident named Ganster, “like gangster” she said, who then saw us through four nebulizer treatments.

It was all going great until the doc suggested that we would have to be admitted for what we later learned doctor’s refer to as a ‘social stay’.

At this point, around 1pm, we hadn’t had breakfast, nor had we showered, as we had expected to be home fresh and with full bellies by 11am. Little did we know that we would be spending the rest of the day and night at the ‘Hotel Pediatrica’.

At first I was amazed at the attention our son was getting. There were at least six different professionals seeing to care: 2 physicians, a nurse, a respiratory pro, a nutritionist, and a custodian – the latter we saw the least of.

As you can imagine, my amazement at this attention quickly soured once my son fell asleep later that night and incessant brigade of medical personnel kept up its routine regardless. They found it necessary to visit him singularly, each one monitoring a separate set of vital statistics that required running the risk of waking our sleeping time bomb fueled by a cocktail of prescription strength doses of the medicine the doc warned would make him “wired”. If he woke it would be ugly, and we did want to deal with that monster.

Time and again someone would burst in during the night, switch on the harsh fluorescent lighting and call my son’s name loudly. The flow would die down for an hour or so, then we would see a flow of bodies every 10 minutes for and 40 minutes, and the another one hour break.

Fortunately, like his mom, he is a much deeper sleeper than I am. But grumpy, smelly and hungry, I came to a breaking point at about 3am. When the first visitor in the chain of medical pros entered the room and threw on the lights, I interrupted her before she could say his name. “He’s sleeping,” I said sternly. I imagine that my delivery was exacerbated by my bloodshot eyes with their puffy purple bags and my drool-crusted cheeks. “Please come back later,” I continued.

I guess this visitor communicated to the others in the chain that the rabid dad in room 406 would not liked to be disturbed anymore, for after my gentle reprimand the visiting stopped.

The next morning, as we awaited discharge from the nurse who was waiting for the doctor who was waiting for the social worker who was waiting for the respiratory pro who was waiting for the nurse, I found myself thinking about the term “social stay”. I failed to see what was social about going 12 hours without eating and 28 without showering, spending the night on a funky transforming armchair contraption, and witnessing your kid being poked and prodded while confined, literally, behind bars.

Apparently behind all of that professionalism, doctors have a dark and sarcastic sense of humor.

My wife and I try to do what we know is best for the environment; we could be categorized as mindful consumers, if not convenient environmentalists.

Prior to our son’s birth we entertained the idea of cloth diapers. I spent my early childhood in cloth diapers, and fondly remember helping change my younger brother’s nappies and watching mom soak them in a pail in the bathroom.

My wife wasn’t enthused about the idea of us changing, soaking and washing cloth diapers, so she sought out and found an alternative – Seventh Generation brand diapers.

This seemed a viable solution. “Seventh Generation Baby is a line of baby products that are better for babies and the earth they will inherit, and that perform as well as traditional brands.” We certainly couldn’t argue with that logic, so we went ahead and ordered boxes and boxes of Seventh Generation diapers and wipes.

I disliked the anomalous scent of the wipes, citrusy, but in a strange chemical way, and so I went out and bought a package of Luvs, which smelled more traditional. Then after a few months our son outgrew the largest size of Seventh Generation diaper offered and we squeezed his dimpled butt into the size 5 which was supposed to be for babies 27+ pounds.

The decision on our part to hold out on purchasing any other brand regardless of the size issue might have been good for the environment, but it certainly was not good for our son. Slowly he developed small bruises on both of his upper thighs. At first we thought it had something to do with the way we were securing the Velcro on the waistband, but as the bruise got progressively got worse, we decided that regardless of the “dioxin exposure and cancer, birth defects and environmental and reproductive disorders” Seventh Generation claims other brands cause, we started shopping for Huggies Pampers emblazoned with Sesame Street’s little red devil. These diapers have a wider waistband and the Velcro closure is made from a much softer material (not the hard plastic of Seventh Genration) which does not abrase his soft skin.

Now the bruises are gone, but it irks me whenever I change him and he chants “Elmo, Elmo.” And I am certain my wife is none too happy that I coerced her into giving in and using diapers “made with materials that have been whitened with chlorine. But these whiter materials come with unpleasant consequences. Bleaching with chlorine creates dangerous toxins such as dioxin, furans and other organochlorines. Once loose in the environment, these chemicals accumulate in both people and animals.”

To their credit, Seventh Generation now makes a size 6 (35+ pounds) but after our last experience only proclamations of direct environmental and health risks and not simply “linked” ones could convince me to switch back.

It’s the day after hump day, and I’m feeling kinda crappy. Especially after learning that Philly is the new New York … I hate their cheeses steaks.

I don’t have one really good subject to write about, so I’ll just rant about nothing:

The playground in the NW corner of Union Sq. draws a much more mellow crowd than the one in Washington Sq. park. I learned this the hard way yesterday. My son wanted to play ball with a couple of older girls (9-years-old maybe?), they didn’t, I retrieved him which made one of the two comment, “That was weird.” Their parents weren’t much more friendly, so we left and waded in the central fountain.

Signing up for the public Parks Department pool in our neighborhood was a bitch. There was a man that was dressed like a woman, who turned out to be a woman that just looks very manly, helping us. It must have taken 30 minutes for us to get our ID’s (yes, my 19 month old needs an ID) in which time my son squirmed and whined and yelled “Water! Water!” which didn’t phase to public service employees one bit.

Last day of music class today. I can’t say I’m gonna miss it. It was becoming a bit of a drag since my son couldn’t really get involved the way he wants to. I think we’re going to try to find some kind of free-form guitar lessons or something, maybe he’ll like that more.

No World Cup soccer at the baby cafe. I contacted the owner with the idea and though she agreed it was a good one she said they didn’t have a TV or cable, which seemed like it would be a great investment for them. This after all is the World Cup.

I feel so much better now …

On Sunday my son and I went shopping for music. It was more an errand run really, since I knew exactly what I wanted to purchase, the new Gnarls Barkley album St. Elsewhere.

Gnarls Barkley is a collaborative endeavor from Cee-Lo of the Goodie Mob and the infamous DJ Danger Mouse. After putting out, then subsequently pulling from records shelves at threat of libel suit, the much downloaded Grey Album, Danger Mouse teamed up later with MF DOOM to release the Danger DOOM album. Gnarls Barkley, to me, seems like a natural progression for Danger Mouse and like his previous projects, I expected this album to be one of my instant favorites.

Only two songs on the album, the tracks Crazy and Just A Thought, live up to my expectations, and since the album cost me fifteen bucks (still less than a pack of Seventh Generation diapers at the local corner store) I am forcing myself to appreciate the other twelve songs.

In retrospect I should have heeded my son’s non-verbal recommendation. On entering the store that Sunday, he started bobbing his head madly to whatever was being played on the stores audio system. He was the focus of much attention in the unusually crowded store and one patron commented that it was great that he was into music at such an early age. As I handed over the cash he was waving his hands wildly, really enjoying the funky hipster-hop beats. On inquiring I learned that the album that was being played at the time was by Spank Rock.

Yesterday, after feeling very dissatisfied with my initial purchase, we returned to the record store and bought the Spank Rock album YoYoYo (I left off some Yo’s). On getting home and popping the CD into the player, I joined my son in a bit of mad head bobbing and wild hand waving as we both danced along. As the name suggests, Spank Rock sounds a bit like stripper music (don’t ask why I know what stripper music sounds like) but it was just what I needed to give me a sound fix.