DOWN WITH PANTS!

Addie went from being a baby to a little girl overnight simply by starting to walk. Though she's 15 months and doesn't look very babyish anymore, I still thought of her as a baby because I had to carry her everywhere. It took her a while - she's got the family stubborn streak - but now she insists on walking everywhere all day until she tires herself out early. Don't get me wrong, I love it, I'm so excited for summer and chasing her around, but combine that with all the signing and talking she's doing and we've got ourselves a full fledged toddler. Baby time is over.

And we were skeptical about the benefits at first, but we are full-fledged evangelists of Baby Signing Time now. It has been a huge help to have Addie signing things that she wants. Big ones are "all done" and "eat" and "milk" and she loves to sign "dog". And not only has she learned signs, but I think it's also been huge in developing her vocabulary. We think she's saying about 25 words in context, maybe more. I don't know if that's good or not for her age, but it seems high compared to other kids I've met.

Of course, a healthy vocabulary has it's drawbacks. Yesterday she was toddling around our bedroom and found the book I'm reading, Drew Magary's "Men With Balls" on the nightstand...


...Of course, the word out of her mouth as soon as she saw the cover was "ball?" Yes honey, you're right, those are balls.

I guess it could be worst, at least she didn't say "testicle?", right?


Somewhat Related Aside (this time I'm not sorry, Kevin) - Yesterday I took over the Seattle Stay At Home Dads group on Meetup.com. So if you stumble upon here and are looking for other stay at home dads in the Seattle area, please sign up for our group and come out to some of our outings.

Back in August of 2005 I wrote a post about how sad I was to give up my Washington license plates in favor of California plates. Tonight I write a post about how sad I am to give up my California plates in favor of Washington plates.

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to have Mount Rainier back on my car, but there was something special about those California plates, something intangible that I lose with the Washington plates. Those California plates screamed "GREAT DRIVER COMING THROUGH! OUTTA MY WAY!" It was a form of identification that I was proud of, at least on my car.

Now there's nothing that separates me from the crappy driving Washington State herd other than my total badassness on the road.

Totally Unrelated Aside (Sorry Kevin) - If you have a second, go vote for my design for the TBTL t-shirt contest. They'll be giving the shirts out as part of a night out at the Seattle Mariner's game on May 21st, hence the simple baseball jersey design and number...


You can vote for it by clicking here and choosing #5 "Old School". Thanks!

To celebrate Earth Day today, I took a 35 mile round trip drive to go for a four mile walk, forgot about a load of laundry in the washer that grew a little stench and had to be rewashed, left the kitchen and dining room lights on despite not being here and left a DVD running on a loop all day.

Suck on that Earth!

In our continuing effort for the upliftment of Edmonds at the Edmonds Foundation for the Upliftment of Edmonds (EFUE), we are proud to release our latest upliftment of Edmonds poster...


We don't know why, but we're really drawn to this one. We hope you'll be drawn here too.

Gee, hard to believe I didn't go into the fine arts. I wish I knew why I made his eyes so bloodshot. And based on the score, I think I watched this game this afternoon except it was the Yankees on the losing end of that one.

Hooray for me! I made Lent my bitch this year and easily went without soda for even longer than the mandatory time. I started a whole week early, maybe even ten days - I can't totally remember - and I didn't really miss it all that much. There were occasional weak moments played out on Twitter, but in reality, my life without soda went pretty well.

I gave up soda for Lent a few years ago, as well, and I have never purchased a 12-pack since (except for one 12-pack of Jones Soda on a whim). Instead I switched to 2-Liters and my intake definitely went down. Now, my goal is to completely give up purchasing 2-Liters. I don't want to have any soda around the house. I'll still purchase a 1-Liter occasionally or have one at a restaurant, but I don't want it to be the main liquid that I ingest all day, which it has been for the past 15-20 years.

I also am giving up all sugary soda. Again, the occasional regular soda is OK - I love Mountain Dew and all of it's varieties too much to give it up completely - but I'll only drink it on special occasions, like yesterday when I had a Code Red Mountain Dew in celebration of my accomplishment and to celebrate the resurrection of our lord and savior Jesus Christ.

One thing that I have to thank for making Lent and my subsequent cutting back on soda possible is the Mr. Coffee 3-Qt Ice Tea Maker that I received as a birthday gift. When I worked for The Cobblee Spleen and Teal Lief we got all the free ice tea that we could drink and I drank as much as I could drink. But after I got RIFed, my ice tea consumption bottomed out mainly because I had the jankiest process for making ice tea. It involved multiple pans and a strainer and the threat of scalding my beautiful, dainty hands. But now, thanks to the Mr. Coffee 3-Qt Ice Tea Maker, making ice tea takes five minutes and I'm almost back to my Cobblee Spleen tea drinking levels.

Anyway, I did it, and I am patting myself on the back because that's what I do. And, I didn't get anything to endorse the Mr. Coffee 3-Qt Ice Tea Maker. I just really like it, that's why I sound like a commercial.

Lent - bow down before me!

I'll never forget the first Easter I spent in Bowling Green, Ohio. I never thought much of Easter as a holiday, we did the bunny stuff and had dinner, but we didn't go out of our way to celebrate. So when I spent a weekend on campus and there wasn't a soul anywhere in the entire town except my friend from San Diego (who was as shocked as I was), it was a big culture shock. I never knew that there really was something to Easter, some kind of tradition.

Well, here at Down With Pants!, we now have our own Easter tradition, one that would clear the campus on it's own as well. I present to you, The Easter Ham Story...

Ever wonder why everybody always eat ham on Easter? Well, I'm no biblical scholar, but here's how I understand the story goes...

When Jesus was resurrected he rose up from the tomb and found a big bunch of Jews hanging out, kicking it, having a picnic of bagels and lox and pastrami sandwiches and talking shit and high fiving about the crucifixtion a few days earlier.

Jesus, as you can imagine, was not pleased. In his deepest, darkest, foulest voice, he bellowed, "silly Jews, I am back. And guess what? We're eating pork, bitches!" And Jesus started flying through the air shooting whole hams from his hands like lightning bolts at all of the Jews.

Seeing this, the depressed and downtrodden Christians joined in and picked up all of the hams that Jesus shot and started chasing the Jews around and throwing the hams at them.

When the very last Jew was either chased off or knocked out by Jesus and his Christian ham throwing posse, Jesus took all of the hams and prepared a gigantic feast and proclaimed, "from this day forward, Christians shall eat the meat of the dirty swine just to piss off the Jews" and in honor of Jesus, his resurrection, and his freeing of the Christian world from Kosher dietary laws, Christians celebrate each Easter by eating ham just to rub it in the faces of the Jewish people.

And that, kids, is why everybody eats ham on Easter. It's also where the game of dodgeball was invented - Christian kids have been using that game to bully little Jewish kids for years - and it's also where the saying "when pigs fly" comes from, although the meaning of that saying got a little mixed up over the years.

But that's a whole nother biblical story that I'd love to share with you sometime very soon. Like I said, I'm no biblical scholar, but I'm pretty sure I know how that story goes too.

Ok, so I lied. I didn't really get a job with the Edmonds Chamber of Commerce. Instead, I have founded the Edmonds Foundation for the Upliftment of Edmonds (EFUE). EFUE is devoted to the upliftment and embiggening of Edmonds. Phase one: tourism posters. Yep, we've got more...


We sincerely hope you'll come ride our ferries.

I got a job with the Edmonds Chamber of Commerce. I'm designing their new tourism posters. It's going great so far...


I think it's a pretty effective campaign.