Who is Tim Tebow?

I don’t know who Kim Kardashian is dating, whether Alec Baldwin has torn someone a new one lately or if Charlie Sheen is still WINNING.

I don’t know if the Miami Heat are on track to give Lebron his first championship (I hope not), whether the Massillon Tigers will be a playoff contender next high school football season (I hope so) or if Tim Tebow has ever had premarital sex (With the ladies he can pull, if he has not, he is indeed God on earth).

I am a parent of a 4-month-old. I know spit up, Enfamil and onesies. I know 4 a.m. wake ups, jumperoos and binkies.

I am daddy. Hear me roar.

My nights used to be leisurely. Stroll home about 6 p.m., kiss the wife, have some dinner, spend a couple of hours surfing the Web for interesting tidbits, watch a little television, hit the sack. I don’t even want to tell you what my life was like when I was just a single dude in a loose mood. Let’s just say doing what you want, when you want, never gets old.

Now, I hustle home as fast as I can to relieve my beleaguered wife, wolf down dinner during my daughter’s evening nap and spend the rest of the night alternating between the jumperoo, the activity floor mat and making funny noises to keep my daughter entertained.

Time for fun? I am the master of playing Words with Friends in one hand while feeding my daughter a bottle with the other.

(Speaking of Words with Friends, how about some of the losers on there? I am a former newspaper writer. I have a better vocabulary than 80 percent of the people I know. But somehow I end up playing people who can play a dozen words I have never heard uttered. The other day, a guy plays "ohed" and "hm" on me. Seriously? You are either cheating or a competitive Scrabble player who should be ashamed of yourself for stooping to play Words with Friends.)

Back to my new life. I haven’t read Deadspin.com in four months. Great site for crazy sports stories. They broke the story about Brett Favre texting a picture of his schlong to a co-worker while with the New York Jets. Who the hell does this stuff? Listen guys, if at any time you feel the need to take a picture of your schlong and text it, you are 1) really, really confident and 2) a COMPLETE IDIOT.

Anyway, I never read deadspin without laughing. I love to laugh. Yet, I have not visited the site since about September. I love to keep up on happenings in the journalism world, but I rarely visit Poynter’s media gossip site anymore and I haven’t even seen Jim Romenesko’s new site.

ESPN.com? Yes, still a daily must. But reading my hometown newspaper, the Massillon Independent, has gone by the wayside. I no longer know when some of my high school classmates get divorced, foreclosed on or busted for drug possession or drunk driving, depriving me of my right to feel superior to all those kids who thought they were cooler than me 30 years ago.

I do read the Cincinnati Enquirer still, but that is because it is a must for my job and I can get away with reading online at work. But I don’t have time to read my buddy Paul’s blog and see if his kids are still scoring soccer goals with Pele-like precision.

I do catch a little news every now and then. I know Rick Santorum is bat-shit conservative, Newt Gingrich is full of bull-shit for thinking African Americans make up the majority of people on food stamps, and that the working man is going ape-shit over Mitt Romney’s 15-percent tax rate.

I also know some chicken-shit Italian cruise captain abandoned ship early.

But now I get my info from the first 20 minutes of the Today Show while stuffing a morning bottle in my daughter’s mouth. No in-depth analysis for me. I haven’t studied enough to vote for American Idol, let alone a Republican presidential candidate.

What else am I not doing enough of?

Going for drinks with friends. People stare at you funny when you bring a baby to a bar.

Cleaning my house. When I have a few precious seconds of down time, I refuse to spend it with a vacuum in my hand. If Children’s Services wants to take my kid away for a dirty house, they’ll have to fight through a mountain of dirty clothes and dishes to get to her.

Making love to my wife. I’m 45 years old. I have a choice between five hours of sleep a night or four hours and fifty minutes. That extra ten minutes of sleep means a lot.

The understatement of the day would be to say my life is different. Even with my wife doing the bulk of the work, parenting is time-consuming. You don’t ever want to start anything new because you never know when you are going to hear the words, “How about Daddy takes over and plays with you for awhile?”

You don’t ever want to get too engrossed in a television show, because the next thing you know she is plopping off the couch and landing on her head.

You don’t ever want to use BOTH hands to play Words with Friends because the second that bottle drops from her lips, the blood-curdling screams start.

You get the picture. 

The other day I worked on staff evaluations all day on a Sunday. Talk about feeling guilty. My wife looked like Nick Nolte’s mug shot by the time I got home.

This parenting thing is a sacrifice. I accept it. I love my daughter. For the next few years, I am prepared to miss Kim Kardashian’s next marriage, Lebron James next failure and Lady Gaga’s next Madonna rip off.

But please, if Tim Tebow finally does get laid, somebody email me a picture of the chick.

At Least She's Not Nicknamed Puff Baby

Sydney is 7 weeks old and has five nicknames. At this rate, she will accumulate 35 nicknames in her first year on earth.

How does this happen? Why are parents so quick to call their children anything but the names they spent dozens of hours debating and sweating over? Shouldn’t this be the time we spend working hard to get her to recognize her real name?

I already told you what we went through to pick Sydney Grace. It was quite the ordeal. So the fact that on any given day she might hear five other names come out of our mouths is a bit distressing to me.

But I can’t stop.

Sydney’s nicknames and the story behind them:

Snorty Magee: She snorts when she is angry and crying. One doctor said her nostrils just aren’t developed enough yet. I sure hope this doesn’t carry over into adulthood. We all know someone who snorts when they laugh….it is very annoying.

Tree Frog: She parks herself like a tree frog on my belly.

Crankypants: Pretty self explanatory. I did some figuring the other day. Sydney probably spends about 6 hours a day just feeding. She sleeps another 13. She is awake and pleasant for about an hour. That leaves four hours a day when she is crying about something or another. Thus, Miss Crankpants.

Porcupine: I gave her this nickname and I really don’t know why. I think “P” words just sound good for babies. Pumpkin Pie. Precious. Peanut. Pudding. Pudding pop. Poopy.

Peanut Butter: My wife gave her this name because she was singing a Raffi song called Peanut Butter Sandwich. I probably don’t need to tell you I have no idea who Raffi is, why he has such a stupid name or why he devoted a whole song to a simple sandwich.

I am confident and relieved none of these names will follow her into adulthood. As kids get older, baby names fall by the wayside. Sooner or later, she won’t be cranky, right? And no matter how big my belly is, she eventually will not be able to sit on it like a tree frog.

But we all know some kid who somehow managed to keep an embarrassing nickname into adulthood. Pee Wee. Bubbie. Buster. Bunny. Marky Mark. Puff Daddy.

Let’s not forget my brother, Little Dick.

I don’t know what nicknames I had when I was a kid. I did have a couple as I got older. I had hair like Leif Garrett in high school – hey, it was the ‘80s -- and one of my buddies decided it looked like a Tumbleweed on top of my head. He and another guy started calling me that. They even copied some signs with my picture and “Tumbleweed” written across the top and hung them around the school. Yeah, funny. Why couldn’t I be the Italian Stallion, Snoop, The Rock or even 50 Cent? Instead, I am nicknamed after some dry grass.

Another guy thought I looked like Tony Dow on Leave it to Beaver and called me Wally. It didn’t really stick, although my best friend who I hung out with all the time became known as Beaver, and that did stick. Later, I went to college and asked Beaver to keep an eye on my girlfriend. He kept his eye on HER beaver and they are married today, so now I have another nickname for him that I will not print in this family blog.

Brooke says the only nickname she can remember was one in college, where she became known as Breeko in some circles. This happened after a night when someone under the influence of an herbal product inadvertently inverted the vowels in her name.

I’ve always been partial to nicknames devised from initials. I always thought TJ was cool when I was a kid. I became known as BG after I got older. Brooke was Brooke Marie. I guess she could have been BM, as in, I just had a BM. Her brother is Blair Jason…BJ. Hmmm.

SG doesn’t really have a ring to it. And I don’t really like Syd. Too masculine. I hope Sydney ends up with a really cool nickname. How about the Fresh Princess? The Material Girl? Lady Gaga? No, I guess I’ll pass.

In fact, I am not sure there are really any cool nicknames for a girl. I think we’ll stick with Sydney Grace. Judging by Miss Crankypants’ first seven weeks, it will be hard enough teaching her that one.  

Trapped Like Jonah in the Belly of the Whale

This whole baby thing is just an excuse for women to play dress up with baby dolls again.

We already have more than 30 outfits for Sydney. I am pretty sure none of them were purchased by a man. My wife just bought a Halloween outfit that declares Sydney the “Prettiest Pumpkin in the Patch.” Halloween is more than two months away. Babies are pretty much home-bound creatures. Sydney likely will not even leave the house that day.…who will see it? That’s $8 – a six pack – down the drain.

I suspect babies grow fast. She might grow out of some of these outfits before she even tries them on. But this is what women do; they play dress up with babies. They mix and match like they are dressing Lady Gaga.  

All a baby really needs is a diaper and a t-shirt. In the winter, they need some long johns and a winter coat. I’d be happy to let her run around naked until she is 3 or 4. It would save me a lot of money.

These baby showers epitomize the idea of treating your baby like a Malibu Barbie. A bunch of women get together and ooh and ahh over these little outfits that would fit snugly on a Chihuahua. It is like they are all six years old again.

I hate baby showers. Those “couples” showers drive me insane. Whenever I am invited to one of those, I curse the man for letting his wife talk him into it. What a puny little girlie man.

We’ve had three showers. One was thrown by my wife’s family, in Minneapolis. I had no choice but to avoid that one. I need all my vacation days for when my daughter comes.

The second was thrown by her teacher friends after school. A small, intimate gathering. Again, easy for me to miss.

The third one ensnared me like Johah in the belly of the whale. I had no choice but to attend.

My team at work planned a surprise shower for me. I am still not sure how they did it without me knowing. I’m a pretty smart guy and take pride in my ability to sniff out nefarious activity. I have probably only truly been surprised twice in my adult life, once at my 30^th birthday party and now at this shower.

My assistant, who absolutely knew I would not go along with a shower and would have quickly snipped that umbilical cord had I known about it, put it on my calendar as a meeting. I fully expected to discuss a customer service issue. Instead, I walked into a room with 20 women yelling “Surprise!,” a cake and loads of presents.

For the next half hour, I awkwardly opened presents while women oohed and ahhed. I felt like a lingerie model at a Paris fashion show. I was on display.

Don’t get me wrong. I am extremely thankful. These are good people who have good hearts. I’m fortunate to work with such quality folks. Plus, I got a lot of free diapers out of it.

But I don’t really like the focus on me. And I don’t know a onesie from a romper. So I was a little embarrassed by the intense spotlight as I tried to figure out if I was holding something she would wear on her top or bottom.

My wife was invited and she loved it. Of course. She received more outfits to play dress up. More importantly, she got to see me squirm like an unsuspecting scumbag on Dateline’s To Catch a Predator .

That’s fine. If she wants to treat Sydney like an American Girl doll, she can be in charge of all clothing choices. I’ll kindly back out and let her handle ALL onesies, rompers, diapers, pajamas, gowns, diapers, dresses, snap shirts, diapers, socks, shoes, diapers, coats, hats and diapers. I promise to never tread on her territory.