Ah yes, the joys of young fatherhood. You think you’re in control, but here are 5 indications of who really runs things:

1) Tupperware: You need to pack away a bit of last night’s dinner for lunch the next day. As you rummage through the cupboards in search of a proper container, you come to the realization that every bowl that can fit in your messenger bag has a matching lid with your child’s name emblazoned across the top in all-caps bold print.

2) Turn that music off: Somewhere past the middle of the Aha Shake Heartbreak CD, the music stops abruptly during ‘Soft’. There is no need for you to ponder whom this killjoy could be, as the person announces himself loudly, “All done! Off. Now Sesame.”

3) It’s 3 a.m. Do you know where your parents are: It’s the pre-dawn hours, a comfortable time for vampires, street urchin and, apparently, hungry toddlers. You are awakened by the sounds of a blunt plastic object banging against a solid wooden one. You are scared stiff, but voluntarily so, because you know that if he sees you move you will hear the request, “Milk please? I want milk please?”

4) Check please: You’ve finally found a nice mid-priced restaurant. No highchairs, but you decide to chance it. There is mellow music piped in (or is it a live DJ?), the decorations on the wall and ceiling look like avant-garde art projects and the furniture has that strange “cool but not very comfortable” quality. You order, but before the waiter can come over with the familiar, “Is everything okay?” question, you signal for the check, ask for everything to go and end up eating dinner to the sounds of a talking porous yellow square and his pink star-shaped sidekick.

5) Run DM Seuss: At bedtime you are able to recite the prose of One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish cover to cover without looking at the text. For kicks you even rap a couple of pages to the tune of a Run DMC song: “My shoe is off / My foot is cold / I have a bird / I like to hold / My hat is old / My teeth are gold / And now my story / Is all told … Hoooahhhh!” You cross your arms in a b-boy stance at the last part and repeat it, “Again?” and “Again?” and “More again?” as your child laughs hysterically.

When my blog grows up it wants to be laidoffmetrodadtypes.com (I should have bought that URL before broadcasting this … damn!)

It’s true that the guys at MetroDad, DaddyTypes and LaidOffDad seem as if they’ve been blogging for so long they should be shipping their kids off to college next September. Yet they still come up with great stuff.

Here are 5 reasons why one day I hope my blog will be like these guys’:

1) Star Power: “Last week, I grabbed some burgers and beers with my fellow NYC bloggers, daddytypes and Laid-Off Dad. While we were hanging out, I started asking Greg (of daddytypes) about a recent post he’d written discussing his conversations and e-mails with various celebrities with whom he’d exchanged parenting tips. Naturally, I thought I’d be able to bribe Greg with Diet Coke until he told me who those celebrities were.” - MetroDad (more)

2) Tech Prowess: “Your name is Kal-El. You have great powers, only some of which you have as yet discovered. You need some educational aids. All the math, memory, logic and spelling games of your home planet Krypton, all 30 of them, in Spanish and English, have been stored on this Superman Laptop Advance from OSI.” - DaddyTypes (more)

3) Investigative Insight: “The book I just finished, Why Gender Matters, is rife with insights about the physical differences of developing brains in boys and girls. Early on, for example, Dr. Sax asserts that hearing develops much sooner and to a much greater degree in girls than in boys. Therefore, in his view, many of the boys that are diagnosed with ADHD only seem bored in class because they can’t hear what’s going on.” - LaidOffDad (more)

4) Honest Honesty (honestly): “Now, I’m man enough to admit that I’m pretty miserable to be around right now and am really not suitable for adult company. This morning, the Boss Lady innocently asked me to throw away some of the twenty New Yorker magazines that have been by the side of my bed for a month and I almost bit her head off. I think my exact words were, “GOOD LORD! STOP NAGGING ME, WOMAN, AND LEAVE ME ALONE! I HATE MY LIFE!” If only I were kidding…” - MetroDad (more)

5) Fan Base: Crikey! (14 comments) - LaidOffDad; We Recently Switched To Organic Milk. You? (26 comments) - DaddyTypes; Good Cop Bad Cop (78 comments) - MetroDad

Five reasons new parent sex is like teenage sex:

1) Carrying-on on the couch: If like me you’re a young parent without a trust fund (oh how I wish I were truly a grup) to belly the monetary burdens that come along with paternity you’re still living in an apartment designed for two. As such you’re probably engaging in what my wife and I call it “teenage couch sex.” While it’s fun the first few times, it gets tired, as I often do, really quickly. Fortunately for visitors our couch is “easy to keep clean with a removable, machine washable cover.”

2) Sway and silent throb: For those spontaneous moments were fooling around leads to more while we’re in bed in a very intense yet very quiet affair as neither of us wants to wake our sleeping son to the sounds of daddy screaming and hollering in ecstasy. Instead we engage in what I’m almost sure qualifies as some form of tongue-bit tantric encounter that takes me back to those pubescent days when I’d have muted 3-minute trysts while my parents were home. Only now the encounters last a few minutes longer.

3) “Now you got Seamen’s Furniture”: That’s a line from the A Tribe Called Quest song Electric Relaxation. It takes me back to high-tops, black medallions, and not getting the obvious pun because I wasn’t getting any. I get it now though, all too well. As for getting ‘it’ that doesn’t happen as often anymore, but from time to time I find myself wanting to bust into a rap and plead “Let me sink the little man from inside the boat. Let me hit it from the back, girl I won’t catch a hernia”. Um, no … Not really.

4) Jimmy Hat and the Pills: As I was as a teen I’m extremely concerned with contraception, though I thought about it as ‘protection’ then. Now that I have no reason to fear contracting STDs, that fear has been replaced by Pregnancy Phobia. Therefore every night I make sure my wife takes her birth control pill along with the other cornucopia of supplemental vitamins and minerals. Though I joke on occasion that I have poked holes in her pills, every time my son performs some boyish stunt I am reminded that I am not ready for ‘number two’ just yet.

5) Crazy for you: Remember how you felt when you had teenage crushes? The pregnancy, birth and development of our sons make me feel that way about my wife. Its an amazing miracle she has performed and no one can match her in my eyes. What’s even more amazing is that she doesn’t look, well, motherly. Somehow she still has that same girlish glow she had when she was just sixteen… and here I am turning 33 in a few days. YIKES!

1) Always wait for the light: In NYC sometimes waiting for the crosswalk sign to flash in your favor isn’t enough with manic Yellow Cab drivers jousting for the next fare. Instead of only looking both ways before I cross the street, I must also size-up the waiting traffic to determine if any of the vehicles are reckless turners.

2) Go all the way: Dangers also lurk inside the house. Ensure that plugs fit snuggly into their sockets. If not you might end up nursing a nasty burn on a toddler that looks like baby Einstein.

3) If it smells like a duck: I really hate taking trips to the E.R., but if my son seems a little too off then it’s a trip we have to make. On most occasions I am in no way comforted, but as the docs poke and prod I remind myself that it’s all for his own good.

4) I’m not your Superman: While on the subject of the E.R., I’ve also found that his aging and burgeoning independence is like Kryptonite to my paternal ESP. As such I am forced to resort to my more physical skills, such as the run, roll and retrieve.

5) My bark is bigger: I’ve developed what my wife calls my “disciplinary voice”. It makes her laugh inside whenever I am forced to administer the “disciplinary voice” to stop my son from jumping off the couch or out of his crib for example, but though it tickles her it terrifies him.

We’re getting closer and closer to the big second birthday bash. Already I’ve started thinking about the cake, the entertainment, the presents… P-A-R-T-Y!

Along with age comes character building, and character is something my son has a lot of. He’s even developed this interesting fake laugh where he chuckles and covers his mouth. Rib rubs result in genuine laughter, but it takes more sinister things to tickle his funny bone.

Here are five things my son think are fake funny (with hypothetical quotes from him):

1) Pain: Inflicted on other of course. “Let’s see what will happen if I put all of my 37 pounds on daddy’s big toe, or stick him with the drum stick, or pull his beard.” OUCH! “Ha-ha-ha-ha-haw. Funnee!”

2) Dizzy spells: Self inflicted naturally. Spin-spin-spin-spin-spin-spin-spin-spin. “Woah. He-he.” Spin-spin-spin. “Whoa. He-he-he.” Spin. CRASH. “Oops. Ha-ha-ha-ha-haw. Fun!”

3) Macro-toons: “How close can I stand to the television and still understand what’s going on?” Closer than THISCLOSE. “It makes me feel and little strange. Kind like … Ha-ha-ha-ha-haw. Funny!”

4) Slips and falls: Daddy bumps his head on the too-low ceiling of the attic apartment. “Ha-ha-ha-ha-haw. Funny!” Mommy drops the bowl of cereal on her way from the kitchen. “Ha-ha-ha-ha-haw. Funny!” Random stranger in the street stumbles while running to toward subway station. “Ha-ha-ha-ha-haw. Funny!”

5) Dangerous situations: “Hey, I almost choked on that piece of fruit… Ha-ha-ha-ha-haw. Funnee!” “Whoa! I almost fell down the stairs … Ha-ha-ha-ha-haw. Fun!” “Oh no, the stroller almost tipped over because daddy was trying to negotiate that corner at high speed … Ha-ha-ha-ha-haw. Funny!”

Each day my son develops a little, not only in age, but in maturity and general knowledge as well. I see the end of many father/son bonding activities fast approaching as he leaves the baby realm and grows into boyhood.

Recently I’ve started questioning the appropriateness of things I find trivial but others might find controversial because I feel as if my son should be able to decide for himself whether he wants to be left- or right-thinking when he grows up.

I sometimes wonder if he should be raised in an environment as bland as possible in order for him to develop his own eccentricities.

Oh well, too late for that. Here are five of the things I’ve questioned:

1) Kissy-kissy: We’re an affectionate family, and as such we kiss each other on the lips frequently. But when around other members of our extended family – teachers, uncles, play group friends – my son also wants to use this method to express his feelings to them. On one occasion he even made my wife blush because as she said, “They were making out.” (the boy’s mom had no problem with this by the way). On another occasion his kissy face actions prompted his teacher to respond, “That’s nice, but I kiss on the forehead,” before she planted one North of his desired target.

2) Hip-hop: “A** shakin’ competition champ / Boy that pu**y gets damp.” That’s a line from a song on the Spank Rock album my son was bopping his head to in the record store. I bought the album, not making note of the lyrics at the time then subsequently shelved it on the realization that it was chock full of profanity. But this begs the question, “Will the rest of my hip-hop collection have to go too?”

3) Splish-splash: My son and I take so many baths together that whenever we are in the bathroom he asks me to sit in the tub with him. We obviously come with the same equipment, and at times he’ll point to my penis and then to his and say “pee-pee”. I know the pop and papoose bath times will have to come to an end. But when? In Asian countries the whole family bathes together until the kids hit puberty. Or as the above image shows it could be worse.

4) Chew bacca: It grosses my wife out, but from time to time our son will take a few bites of something, decided he dislikes it, then hand it to me. I’ll mindlessly eat whatever food item it is as my wife gags in the background. I tell myself that it teaches him to appreciate different tastes, “If daddy eats it, then it must be good,” but really it’s just easier than finding a trash can.

5) Roughhousing: “And in this corner…!” We really get into it, my son and I, and on occasions it will even get bloody – accidentally of course. I love it and he loves it, but I recently saw him bounce a ball off another toddler’s head as we do when we play ‘indoor soccer’. The toddler didn’t like it. I plan to stop roughhousing when I am the one that has to cry “Uncle!”

Another day, another milestone. Yesterday my son had his first day of school. All went well (except for me freaking out just minutes before we left our apartment) and he got a ‘plays well with others’ as his first report.

Here are a few things I learned on the first day:

1) Clean: I dressed him in a new shirt and shorts for his first day, and boy did he look cute. The button-down made him seem much older, and I snapped a picture for posterity. Good thing I did, because when I picked him up he looked like he had been blasted with a purple finger paint cannon.

2) Eat: I over-packed his lunch box. Pear, banana, milk, juice, and he was only going to be there a couple of hours since the first time at school is a mandatory half day. When I picked him up his lunch box was empty, and he had tomato sauce all over his cheeks. The pear and banana were untouched.

3) Order: We were told to make sure we provide various labeled items in a bag to be left with him. The list included diapers, which, of course, we sent. But when we got home and I changed him, I noticed that he was wearing a diaper with a name scrawled in large letters across the crotch. The name was not his.

4) Drop-off: “Get to school by 8:15am” does not mean that class starts at 8:15am. If you get there before you’ll have to wait until the stroke of 8:15 then you’ll be allowed to take your kid to his class.

5) Star child: I expected that since it was his first day he’d have a bit of introduction time with the teachers. Not so. They were occupied with catching up with the parents they knew from the previous year.