Happy 2.5 birthday, Blake!

Well, actually I'm late by over a week, but since it's only a half birthday, it doesn't really matter. It's really all about Christmas and we've already started stockpiling presents for him. Blake is now officially closer to three than two. 

It's still mind blowing that this little human being has been around for such a short period of time considering the effect he had on my life. I just can't imagine life without Blake. Correction, make that Blakes. In this short period of time I got to meet many different Blakes, most of whom I only get to see now in photos and videos: newborn Blake, six months old Blake, one year old Blake... If only I could have a little reunion and have all of them together in the same room. Well, now I'm just being stupid. Well, stupider than usual.

The last six months were quite amazing in terms of his development and I can't wait to see what the next six months have in store. Actually, I'm lying. I can wait. Blake can take his time growing up, there's no rush on my part. I cherish every second and dread the moment when he'll suddenly be a sulky door slamming teenager who shouts "I hate you!". Where was I? Oh yeah, Blake's development.

We were a bit worried when Blake decided not to speak. He said his first word Sunflower (well, it came out more like safla) and then decided it was boring to talk. Being good parents we considered the worse. Was he deaf? Autistic? A Republican? Now that he proved to us that he can read around 100 words we're far less worried (as can be seen in the video posted a couple of months ago). Over the last couple of weeks Blake started showing interest in verbalizing, mostly mimicking animal noises, but also saying lion and tiger (at least trying, and getting better gradually). If I show him a card he can associate with a sound he can make, he'll do it. So if I show him the word CAT, he'll meow. KISS, he'll blow me a kiss. Etc. So it seems the only thing I have to worry about regarding his intellect is him being smarter than me by the time he turns 14. Heck, make it 10.

Blake is inflating in an alarming rate. I used to carry him on my shoulders on the way to the nursery, but nowadays I prefer the buggy since he's just too heavy. He used to open the only few drawers in the kitchen that couldn't be baby-proofed (you can say they were baby-proof-proof, but why would you?). He could barely reach in blindly into the drawers and take out whatever his tiny hand could grab. Now he can stand by the drawer and actually look down into it. It's little things like that that alarm you when you notice them. 

Blake still loves his iPod. I must say that I give the little device some credit for Blake's development. Blake often watches cartoons on it (his cartoon diet courtesy of Papa includes Thomas the Tank Engine, Smurfs, Winnie the Pooh, Dexter's Lab, Muppet Babies, Animaniacs, Spongebob and Ren & Stimpy), but often I'll catch Blake drilling various educational applications and if there's a voice saying names of animals or making animal noises, Blake will try to mimic them. And to think all I had when I was a little boy was a Little Professor. Oh, how much I loved practicing math on my Little Professor. I even took it with me outside. Once I left it on the pavement when I ran to see a near-accident that happened nearby and when I came back it was gone. I cried so much. The only other time I cried so much was when a power failure happened during an episode of the Snorks (underwater Smurfs knockoffs). To this day I don't know how that episode concluded. Where was I?

1980's

                              

  

 2010's

Oh yeah. Blake. I love him so much. Here's to many more half birthdays little guy!

Here's a picture of Blake's first mall Santa trauma.

--Mickey

Yikes! A whole month without writing...

As I said on a previous break, sometimes I don't write in my blog not because I have nothing to write about, but because the things I'm going through are too personal to share. This is not a "dear diary".

Also, a lot of my creative stamina was spent on a couple of projects I'm doing with my Cheese Comics partner, Sally. One is a birth+ children's book which we just finished and started submitting to agents and another is an on-line webcomic with a strong gay-parented family focus which we'll debut hopefully very very soon. It just needs colouring and some touch-ups. I'll probably share a few preview pages here before we premiere it properly.

In other news Dexter is two today, so happy birthday Dexter! Great Danes are people-wannabes and Dexter just happens to be the most dog-like Great Dane we ever had. It sounds like an odd thing to say about a dog, but if you owned a Great Dane you'd get it. I love Dexter, but I won't say I wouldn't change a thing about him. I'd tone down the crazy a little if I could. The boy is mad, but thankfully he's slowly calming down as he matures.

Also, I dreamt I was on the X-Factor (Simon Cowell's British version of American Idol) as a finalist and I was somehow surviving the first few weeks. Then I realized I didn't pick a song to sing in case I was in the bottom two - quite cocky, aren't I? I then had one of those "I may not be one the best singers on this show, but I'm wacky and entertaining". Not quite Wagner-level, but I was dancing and jumping on tables. Then there was this fat girl who claimed I was making her life hell (I never met her!!!) so she had her revenge by saying that I was an unoriginal hack. And there was some black dude who was also in the competition and was booted before me and he was annoyed that I didn't remember his name when I met him. Halfway through my conversation with him our conversation turned from real-life to Facebook message exchange. Not sure how. There was also a bit where I snuck into the girls' toilets to wash my hands, but I can't quite remember the context. 

That's what I can remember fairly clearly. There was lots of other detail that is too confusing to describe. I'd classify it as a nightmare.

A couple of weeks ago I dreamt that we were on this trip and Chuck Norris was piloting our helicopter. Apparently that was his gig now that his acting career has dried up. I wanted to take a picture with him at the end, but then lots of annoying girls I couldn't recognize (except for my friend Sally who wasn't annoying) stormed us to be in the picture and then it was me, Chuck and a hundred annoying girls.

The next day I dreamt about doing some extreme sport (can't remember which type by now) with Eliza Dushku and we were buddies. Forgot the little details. I need to write these dreams down when they're fresh.

I think I need help.

--Mickey

Read It and Weep!

Blake isn't a big talker. When he was a few months old he started babbling and made every possible sound and then even tried saying sunflower as his first word (came out sounding more like "safla", but close enough). Then he lost all interest in trying to talk and obviously it got us worried.

For a while we were worried that he might've had hearing problems, but soon enough we had plenty of evidence that Blake can understand many words. He especially likes to be asked to point out animals either in pictures or from his collection of animal figurines. He can tell the difference between cheetah and leopard instantly while even I sometimes have to stop to think for a second which is which.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I tried the Glenn Doman Teach Your Baby to Read program. Blake enjoyed seeing the big cards with words and hear me read them out loud for him, but I was never sure how much of it he actually understood. A little over a week ago I decided to quiz him for the first time with the body parts cards and to my surprise he pointed out cards perfectly. I would name a card and he would point at it with confidence. The most amazing part was seeing his reaction to his own achievement. Every time he got a word right his eyes would light up and he'd turn around and hug me in excitement.

So my son isn't talking yet, but he can read over 50+ cards (most of them were taught to him only this passing week). I can happily recommend the Glenn Doman method to any other parent with children under six. Get his book on Amazon. It's a facsinating easy read and even better: it actually works!

I created four groups of cards so far: Animals, colours, body parts and a general group with words from Blake's world (daddy, papa, Blake, our dogs, etc.). I simply took cheap flash cards we had lying around and cello-taped on top of them the words I printed myself.

Here's a video proof showing Blake's mastery over the animals cards. He's going to be two and five months in four days.

--Mickey

FCKH8

Thanks to Facebook I was introduced to this fantastic little ad against prop 8.

Here's the uncensored version:

If you're offended by the F word (seriously?) or watching it in a public place/work there's also this bleeped version:

It's unapologetic, foul mouthed and in-your-face. It's angry and raw and I love it for it. An entire group of people had their basic human rights stripped away when proposition hate passed and the time for tip-toeing and playing nice is over. Discriminated minorities shouldn't beg for equality, they should fight for it tooth and nail. 

Some people might be offended by the repeated use of the F word in this clip, especially when they come out of the mouths of young children. But really, it's only a word. People should be far more offended by seeing groups of people being discriminated against and oppressed.

Check out their website. 

--Mickey

Prison Blake

Cots are wonderful because they keep our little ones safe inside- is what we tell ourselves. The real selling point of those things is the fact that once we stick our little angels in it, they can't get out. They might scream their heads off, but they can't get out.

Does sound a bit evil and unfair, doesn't it? At two years and four months Blake has decided to fight for his toddler rights and developed a burning hatred for his cot. Why wouldn't he? Would you like to be thrown into a cage at the end of every day and sometimes at nap time when the only time you can get out is when your evil captors decide it is?

Blake's dislike of the bed turned into sheer loathing. The other night he stood in his bed, screaming harder than I ever heard him do before and he even managed to almost fling on leg over and jump out. So we could've waited a bit to see if he'd manage to jump out and land on his head, but instead we decided to expedite the purchase of a toddler bed.

Which toddler bed we were going to go for was a no brainer. It was really about which Tomas the Tank Engine bed we were going to go for. Miron found a reasonable one on the Internet and we ordered it.

Blake's last night in the cot was business as usual. He woke up twice in the middle of the night and wailed for a few minutes at the time. I felt bad, but I knew that this was the end of an era. From the next night it was going to be us who were going to suffer through the nights as now nothing is going to stop Blake from getting out of Bed and coming to ours whenever he wants to. Revenge is sweet.

Taking the old cot apart and assembling the new bed was easier than I thought. Blake was delighted to discover the big new toy in the corner of his room, but he was still quite suspicious of it. It took him awhile to realize it was the kind of bed he can get in and out of on his own.

The first night Blake just kept wandering around the house, even after I went to Bed. He somehow managed to get his hands on his iPod Touch and decided it was a good idea to watch Spongebob right next to my sleeping face. I remember vaguely eventually picking him up to sleep with me. The next night he fell asleep in our bed again, but I was awake enough to take him to his Thomas Bed. Now the question was, was he going to sleep through the night or wake up in a few hours and come to us? The good news is, he slept in it all night without any incident. At around nine I heard footsteps and Blake came into my study half-asleep and clutching Mr. Slug. Cute overload first thing in the morning. 

Later in the day he even jumped into bed and bounced around a little. His bed is no longer a prison, it's a fun place. So only two nights and we're already in the right direction.

It's the end of an era. I'm not really going to miss the cot. I miss Blake as a younger baby, but that boat has already sailed and keeping him in a cot isn't going to change that.

 

--Mickey

Poor Loshik 2

I started writing a post about how nice it was to have Leo back home after his operation, but before I posted it he was taken back to the hospital in a pet ambulance after being back for only two days. 

He was supposed to stay for one night and ended up staying for four. It was a joy to pick him up. He was so happy to see us that he tried jumping and we all had to restrain him so he won't hurt his leg. The vet inserted a big metal plaque secured with big screws and he must take it easy for at least six weeks. No running, no jumping and no falling. We even reinstalled the child's gate at the top of the stairs to prevent Leo from running down the stairs in case someone rang the doorbell.

As soon as he came back he started licking his bandage off and managed to infect his wound. On Sunday morning he didn't touch his food and barely moved, putting no weight on his bad leg even though he had started to slowly use it again. Off he went...

Dexter was depressed to lose his brother again, but he bounced back since. Leo also didn't eat very well at the hospital so I cooked him some chicken livers and drove over to deliver the liver (hahaha) and I heard that he wolfed it down. He's feeling better now, so hopefully he'll be back home before the weekend.

Deliver the liver... Haw!

--Mickey

Cheese Comics

A few days ago I brought back from the dead my old website, Cheese Comics. Even though the website was still on-line earlier this year, it hasn't been updated in about 6-7 years.

After graduating from University I teamed up with two fellow graduates and we printed our little comicbooks and posted them on our website. We went to a few comics conventions, but kinda gave up on it when we started pursuing our individual careers. 

Now we're making comics again and in preparation for the new stuff I'll be restoring the old content with a new design for the website. Some of the old material will become available on-line for the first time.

I'm fleshing out a little webcomic about my experiences and feelings as a gay parent, but it may take awhile before it'll be ready as I want to get it right.

Please check it out. Our material is quite diverse: you can read about an over-weight middle aged super hero mom, a foul mouthed little girl with a demented imagination, a penis private eye, various parodies and much more.

I intend to upload material on an almost daily basis for the next week or two. Any updates will be posted in the Cheese Comics Blog and the related Facebook group.

I hope you like it!

--Mickey

Poor Loshik

Awww, poor little Leo. My little cuddle bunny was limping for the last week. Our vet is fairly certain that he has a ruptured cruciate ligament of the left stifle. Wow, I sound like a doctor from Grey's Anatomy when in fact I just copied it from the vet's letter. Basically it's very unpleasant and if not treated can lead to arthritis which we know isn't nice.

Lulu also developed a habit of licking his paw raw and gnaw at it until he had nasty open wounds. I love Leopold very much, but he's dumber than a box of Tictacs. So I took him to the vet to bandage his paw and that was when I found out about his hind leg being the bigger problem. 

Blake also twisted his foot that day as a show of solidarity and was limping for a couple of days. He then got better, but kept walking funny for a few days later, probably thinking it made him look cool. Silly kid, he doesn't understand he can't not be cool no matter what he does. He's awesome like that.

Anyway, back to poor Leon. Tomorrow it's surgery time and he'll be spending a night at the vet's with an overdose of painkillers which sounds like a great way to get high. The surgery includes insertion of some metal, making Leo the bionic robo-dog. He's already got some plastic in his ear from a previous operation. Soon only his brain will remain from his original body. I can see his brain keeping for a long time, being so underused it's practically like new.

No food after 10pm today so I made sure to give the boys some extra yummy food just before the cutoff time: some dry food with chicken livers. There'll be a six weeks recovery period in which Leoska can't run or go upstairs, at least in the first week or two. No walks off the lead. We'll see how it goes. I think putting a suitcase at the bottom of the stairs will be enough to tell the dogs they can't go up. I might sleep with Leonardo in the living room in the first night or two. He's got a whole sofa for himself so he can make himself comfortable.

Still, he's over five years old and probably more than halfway through the short life span of a Great Dane. It's not the best time to have a big surgery, but then again better now than in two years or more.

So fingers crossed for my little puppy...

--Mickey

Musings

I don't really have anything to write. It's not like there's nothing going on in my life, it's just that it's either too personal or too boring.

For example yesterday I felt like having some cereal as a night snack. After I poured my Coco Pops into a bowl I realized we ran out of cow's milk. There was some of Miron's goat's milk but I rather use bleach. Yuck. Then I remembered that I did have some chocolate milk. Why not use that? Coco Pops turns milk chocolaty anyway, what's the worst thing that can happen? It'll be extra chocolaty? There's no such thing as too much chocolate, right? Well, wrong. It was too chocolaty and quite vile. Don't do it.

I also have an odd craving for Coleslaw. I always kinda liked it, but wouldn't get out of my way to get it. Now I can't go for too long without it. Coleslaw with chicken, coleslaw with sausages, coleslaw with hamburgers, coleslaw with a cold cuts sandwich, coleslaw with coleslaw served on a bed of coleslaw. Nom nom nom nom nom. I know it has ridiculous amounts of mayonnaise in it, but I'm hooked.

On other news both Leo and Blake are limping due to minor injuring and are both getting better. Dexter is still a little bit crazy despite the dog training, but I can control him better when I take him on his own. It's still a wrestling match, but at least I win now (or at least don't lose). Hopefully he'll mellow with age like Leo did.

See? I have no material to work with here. Stick with me through this anecdote drought. I'm sure it'll pass soon!

--Mickey

P.S

Oh, here's a picture of Blake after he decided to wipe his chocolate-stained fingers on his face. I can always count on a Blake photo or video to carry my dead weight!

My New Blog

No, I'm not done with this blog. I just find that sometimes I don't have anything interesting enough to write about my life. I don't want to scrape the bottom of the barrel and write about Blake's latest nap (it was lovely, but he work up cranky). There are things that are interesting, but perhaps too interesting as they are too personal. I don't take the "dear diary" approach and share everything with the world.

So being a big fan of horror I decided to start a blog about horror reviews: movies, comics, videogames, books. I sometimes post random posts on Taking the Mickey covering many subjects, but I found that if I started flooding this blog with horror reviews it might confuse the target audience.

So here it is: Badly Named Horror Blog. If you enjoy horror movies please check it out.

I'm happy with posting here once a week, but I'm sure inspiration will strike and it'll pick again in the very near future.

--Mickey

This is Why I Don't Read the News.

I try to avoid news. I used to be a news addict: pick up free newspapers to read on the tube, check out news websites several times a day, catch the news on TV and the radio. Nowadays I try to avoid the news like the plague.

I appreciate the importance of the news, I just find it hard to digest. Especially since there is so little I can do about the stuff that upset me. You read about war, disasters, murder and accidents and often the victims are helpless little children. As a parent I find it much harder to hear news about children who were killed and/or tortured by their parents or even just died in a stupid and random accident.

I understand it's important to publish those stories as it will make many careless parents act more responsibly (though it must be acknowledged that not all accidents are preventable, sometimes it's just rotten luck), but I don't need it. Trust me. I'm super careful with Blake and I would really rather not see pictures of adorable toddlers who died horribly and read about their grief-stricken parents. Pass.

Today I decided to sneak a peek at the news and I saw this. It's a very difficult to watch video of a girl throwing puppies into a river. I couldn't watch past the first twelve seconds. It made me ask myself: is that why I checked the news? I already know there are nasty people who inflict suffering on others, human or otherwise. I guess it's eye-opening for some people, but not to me.

So if it's OK with you, I would rather cuddle with my son, husband and doggies and pretend that this little bubble of love and joy is all that exists in the world. At least for most of time. I know that I can't cut myself completely from the world around me, but occasionally I'm going to try.

--Mickey

Food for Thought

This picture is from last summer, but Blake still likes ice-cream.

I find myself fascinated by Blake's eating habits, his likes and dislikes. They are so random and constantly change. We used to be proud of his wide palette, but lately he started being more picky. If before he'll try anything and only spit out food he genuinely didn't like, now he often judges food before even tasting it based on its appearance and smell.

His favourites are chips, rice, fresh tomatos, chicken and all kinds of fruit. He also likes many dim sum menu items, from crumbly pork pies to gooey shrimp pancakes. Anything outside of that is guess work and trial and error. He used to like the toddler ready made meals and devour them, but now he wouldn't touch them. Some pasta he likes and some he reject insistently, and I suspect it all comes down to the shape of the pasta.

Miron hates chocolate which made it really easy for me to stock up without worrying about anyone looting my stash. Unfortunately for both of us, Blake adores chocolate. Miron, being a chocolate hater, is a persecuted minority shunned by society and he hoped to find a kindred spirit in his son. I'm disappointed because I can't pig out on chocolate in front of Blake without having to share and if I don't want him to eat too much chocolate, I can't eat too much chocolate. You know when people say how they have to make sacrifices for their children? That's one of those sacrifices right there.

Blake loved his formula bottles and I was worried about how to wean him off them. But then one day a couple of months before his second birthday he rejected the bottle and that was it. Not only that, he doesn't like any milk-based drinks, not even chocolate drinks. Yet, he loves cereal and eats it almost every morning. I just have to feed it to him with a fork because if I use a spoon he'd spit the excess milk through pursed lips.

It's very frustrating to make something for him and have him refuse to even touch it. I can't leave him hungry so I end up making him something I know he likes. 

At least Blake is quite naturally balanced. He loves chocolate and cookies, but he adores apples, bananas, clementines and strawberries just as much, if not more. He likes playing games and watching videos on his iPod, but he'd drop it in a second to go play outside in the garden.

At least I'm easy to cater for. I'm like a garbage disposer. I'll eat pretty much anything. 

Except for Turkish Delight. Bleargh.

--Mickey

Summer Games

The dogs are working on their tan. I think Leo overdid it...

I'm a summer person. I'm not crazy about hot weather, it's the longer hours of light that I love. When it gets dark before 4pm it's beyond depressing. When you work nine to five it makes all the difference. In the winter it feels as if you stayed late for overtime when you are greeted by pitch dark as you step out of the office, but in the summer when you have another four or five hours of light after you finish work it feels as if you only worked half a day. In fact you keep exactly the same hours, but it feels so completely different.

That doesn't mean I don't enjoy the dark. I take the dogs late at night because I know there's no chance of meeting other dogs and they can run around and blow off some steam. There's something very relaxing about walking for twenty minutes in a dark park before going to bed. I don't even need a flashlight anymore as I know all the paths and routes by heart now (except for that one time I almost fell into the stream and called Miron to come rescue me because my leg hurt so bad that I thought I must have broken it though I didn't). I enjoy darkness, as long as it doesn't fall too soon.

I actually look forward to December 21, the shortest day of the year, because I then know that at least now the days may be still very short, but they're getting a little longer every day. It offers me some comfort. Yes, I'm a bit crazy like that.

Leo watches the boys play from my study's window.

And now the summer is more than halfway through. August has been quite chilly so far. Blake's long sleeves PJs have come out of retirement earlier than expected.

The garden is getting a lot of use by Blake and the woofers. As part of the new routines for the dogs they are now not allowed to poop anywhere they want. With the garden no longer being a minefield of poo it's much more fun to spend time in it. Blake enjoys just walking around and watch the dogs play, while the dogs chase each other and play fight. Blake likes the garden so much that he even insisted on going out after it rained a lot and the grass was soaking wet. He then rolled on the wet grass in sheer delight. Obviously we went from there straight to the shower with a brief pit stop in the laundry room... It's those moments that remind me that even though life isn't perfect, I am very very lucky.

And now it's bubbles time!

Bubbles are AMAZING.

--Mickey

Humans: Endangered Species

Alveda King, Martin Luther King Jr's niece, spoke at an anti gay rally and said that legalizing gay marriage will lead to "extinction" and referred to it as "genocide". 

Because we all know that two people living in a committed relationship is exactly like systematically eradicating an entire culture. You know, the world's biggest problem at the moment is a severe lack of humans. Can hardly find any of those anymore. 

Obviously the fact that we, a married gay couple, brought a child into the world means that we're actually helping humanity to survive in the face of complete obliteration. We can look at all our childless straight friends with contempt for their utter disregard to our survival. I think fertile people who don't reproduce should be sentenced to death because they're just wasting space.

Tough in Alveda King's case I would actually recommend not reproducing. In the long run humanity needs to favour quality over quantity.

--Mickey

Self Dunking

On the weekend we went to pick up the dogs we stayed at a nice little hotel with a swimming pool. I wanted to film Blake do his self-dunking for a long time and finally Miron was there with me to take the video. At our usual pool Blake can stand at the shallow end and all he has to do to self-dunk is to bend his knees and go down. The pool at the hotel was deep all around, but Blake found that he can use the little ladder to push himself up and down.

He's so cute and clever, if I say so myself.

--Mickey