I usually sleep in on Sundays. Not because I’m lazy, or because of any “fatherly” ritual about “a day of rest” or anything. I lie in bed and listen to NPR Weekend Edition. My wife hates that shit and it’s the only time I can just take it all in. I hate it too but I figure it’s good to know what those sneaky do-gooders are up to since you cannot trust do-gooders.

Today, there was a tell-tale pitter-patter of not-so-little feet somewhere in the house. Then, there was rock. Well, noise. But, it was rock for up to 10 or 12 seconds at a time. I was pleasantly amused. Proud even. But I figured it would pass. It was, like, 8:30. Too early but, like Grohl said, just let ‘em rock.

I showered and got dressed and discovered the rock was actually happening for nearly 30 second bursts now.

I made my way down to the studio and found these two awesome fuckers “rehearsing.” Mine barking out production orders, the other saying they needed to play together. There was guitaring, drumming, and sometimes pianoing.

When they saw me, they did not scatter like roaches (I’ve read that roaches scattered when you came in, but what would I know) but asked me, earnestly, if there was any way to get the guitar and the mic to play through the same amp. I found a splitter and left them alone.

Before I had kids, I figured putting on something like Scooby Doo 2 Monsters Unleashed would be a respite from parenting where you could just plonk them down in front of the TV and then go have sex with your wife or something. Ha!

I haven’t seen my wife’s vagina in so long it could fall in the woods and it wouldn’t make a sound.

Apparently you have to sit with them when you put on a movie. They need the finer points of the plot explained and they need you to be around when the monsters come out.

Long before teens posted nasty comments on their friends’ Facebook pages and adults took surreptitious photos of Walmart shoppers to post and mock on peopleofwalmart.com, there was Vice magazine. It pioneered the art of matching photos of regular people with cutting comments.

Gavin McInnes, a founder of Vice who cut ties with the magazine in 2008, created the infamous Dos and Don’ts in early ’90s Montreal. A bully by today’s standards, he argues that bullying — especially the old-fashioned noogie and purple nurple — is good for children.

Dos and Don’ts were photos taken of people out in public — knowingly or unknowingly — paired with humorous insults or lecherous and offensive compliments. It began when Vice was based in Montreal and continued as a staple of the magazine when its founders moved it to Brooklyn and found worldwide success.

He says bullying has changed over time. “When I was a kid, bullies weren’t necessarily a bad thing,” he said. “You got a wedgie. No one wore glasses when I was in school because you’d be a ‘four-eyes.’ Now, all kids have glasses.”

McInnes says legal attempts to stop cyberbullying won’t help children. High-profile cases of kids who kill themselves after they’ve been bullied are not enough to prove a crisis, he said.

“To cling to that I’m sure sells papers and makes people feel special and makes people feel that they’re righteous, but the mathematical truth of it is it’s not a major problem and the worst thing you could do would be to try to fix this fake problem by regulating people. Sorry, someone called you fat. Sorry, you were bullied online. That’s called high school.”

McInnes fondly recalls his childhood, when he says bullies were respected as tough guys that you’d want to be, and kids were tough enough to ride their bikes barefoot until their soles were like leather.

“Every kid had a cast on, we wouldn’t wear a helmet, we didn’t have car seats, and then you go into the real world and you can fight and survive,” he said. “Now we have fat kids, sitting inside where it’s safe, playing video games, being regulated to extinction.

“You do a lot more disservice to a child when you make him scared of the world and when you put him in a protective bubble where it’s illegal for anyone to be mean to him. Mean is good, because the world is cruel.”

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED HERE

There it was. A cardinal had struck the house. It was dying. We watched its head move for a few seconds; its beak opened and closed a couple of times. Silently. The body still. And that was it. It died quickly; in 20 seconds or thereabouts.

“Aww…” I said.

Beasley said, “You should have seen your face when you said ‘aww’.”

The cardinal’s neck was clearly broken. The head lolled around unnaturally. Since we had to take it away from the front of the house, we decided to give it one last flight.

We walked it through the forest and to the lake. We discussed how much we admired cardinals and how it could leave behind a sad, lonely widow.

We said our goodbyes and sent it on its very last flight. It flew perfectly.

As we waited for it to sink, a buck ran by. So full of life.

[photography by Beasley Korsakov]

My kid is smart. She is smart and she goes to a great American school. Not “Great American™,” but an American school that doesn’t suck like most of them. In fact, it’s been recognized as one of the country’s best.

Right now she is learning about government. Typical fifth grade stuff: branches of government; composition of congress; who our representatives are; etc.

But, while studying the Judicial Branch, lookie what, or how, the liberals are teaching my child (photo above, I’ll give you a moment to peep her flash card on “Supreme Court Membership”). Really? Really?! Liberals cry rivers of non-bottled, tap-water precious resource tears over conservatives leaving stuff out and slanting information, and this is what they are teaching at my kid’s school? The hell.

Now, I’m definitely more liberal than anyone calling themselves a Liberal™. This we all know and it needs no further explanation. I disagree with significantly all Conservative™ dogma. But, I also happen to disagree with about 95% of liberal dogma. It’s all partisan, bickering, bullshit. I can pick and choose what I believe in and what I support. Anyone following a script or partisan talking points is a mope. A dumb, lazy mope. But, c’mon? To diminish four members of the Supreme Court to “Plus 4 more” is shallow. It’s only cheating the kids.

I had my child add the following names to the membership of the Supreme Court: Antonin Scalia, Sam Alito, Anthony Kennedy, and Clarence Thomas. Why? Because this is important. Because these are the members-for-life of the Supreme Court of the United Sates of America in the year 2012, the 236th year of the United Sates of America. This is education. These are the facts. This is the data. How I roll. The choice here was list them all or list none of them. Clearly. I guess Roberts got on the card since he’s head honcho and voted with the law with regard to the universal health care ruling. What-evs.

I also understand that the teacher declared that Clarence Thomas “should be fired” because “he doesn’t do anything.” My problem here is 1) He cannot really be fired. Doy. And, 2) Declaring he doesn’t do anything shows a very dim view of how the Supreme Court works. It also shows a poisonous bias that doesn’t help the students get past the poison biases in politics and government. Already I have to email teachers.

Learning, in my opinion, from either a Conservative™ or a Liberal™ perspective should never, ever insult America. Hey liberals, next time you flail and convulse over Intelligent Design or Creationism, remember this flash card.

So the fish has been sent to pasture. The fish that never had its own name is now swimming freely. That’s what reduces my dissonance.

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One day early in the last school year, Beasley came home and announced that, “We’re getting fish!” The class had built an aquarium/terrarium environment in class that consisted of interconnected chambers of what looked like mud. It was a class project on biology or ecology or something. When the project neared its scripted end the teacher asked who wanted to take home fish and my darling Beasley decided she was up to the task of fish ownership. Along with probably a dozen other kids. There was a lottery.

We found a book on fish and did some research on “mosquito fish” and bought the proper food (algae tablets). We went and got a small aquarium, some gravel, a few fake plants, and a filtration system. The whole get-up put me back something like thirty bucks. No biggie for what I thought would be several little fishies.

We set up Beasley’s first aquarium. I explained about oxygenating the water and pH balance and such. We told the cat that he couldn’t mess with it. The child was stoked.

I sent in a note to Mrs. G certifying that our family was all raring to go with fish ownership and, after school that very day Beasley came home with one tiny mosquito fish in a Dixie cup. I asked, “just one?” and Beas informed me that bunch of kids wanted fish (and their parents certified apparently) so each kid got one tiny mosquito fish. I’ve seen clipped toenails bigger. This was a tiny little creature.

Every few days Beasley would tell me that another of the mosquito fish cohort was dead. The last of the cadre died about two weeks after we all adopted. I felt it was My Parental Duty to prepare the kiddo for what was surely going to be a quick fish death. That was October.

Over the months Beasley, understandably, grew less and less interested in the fish–never named. With school, spelling bee, Girl scouts, lacrosse, soccer, softball, climbing, summer camps, trips, and all the shit a kid in this socioeconomic class does, the fish became background. I ended up as chief feeder and head tank cleaner.

The fish with no name that never grew past a half-inch was now my fish with no name that never grew past a half-inch.

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Today, nine months after we welcomed fish–never named–into our home, we all decided that the fish wasn’t looking healthy. Tonight we leave on a trip. Instead coming home to a death or saddling our house sitter with flushing fish–never named–I had the bright idea to take the fish out to the lake for a proper goodbye. Maybe the fish will experience a moment of freedom, maybe the never-named will get eaten by a turtle. Maybe it will die instantly.

I told Beasley my well-considered plan; a plan that didn’t involve flushing. A plan that provided opportunity. I talked for a solid three minutes. I described my fatherly duty and felt that my reasoning and solutioning were solid.

Beasley told me, “OK. I don’t care.” Then she look at me and said, “I mean, I don’t mind. I understand. You can do it while I’m at art class.”

We went to see the movie Brave this weekend with family friends the McCormacks and although the movie was good, it was filled with dated stereotypes about Scots.

We went to see it in upstate New York because ticket prices are about half what they are in the city. We got there early to make sure we got tickets and then had our wives secure a picnic table outside while us dads went to get pizza. The guys at the pizza place said it would be about 25 minutes but we managed to get them down to 20 and that was still enough time to sneak over to the bar next door and down a few whiskies. So we did. Then we had one or two more. Then maybe another – or two.

There were 8 of us in total but the dinner bill was under $50. Not bad eh? The drinks were two-for-one so our secret sojourn was only another $20 bringing the total for the whole evening under $70. That’s all four McInneses and all four McCormacks fed and drunk for under $10 a person.

When we got to the theater, we unpacked the popcorn we had snuck in and put it into individual sandwich bags for each kid. The other dad had brought drink boxes, which I offered to pay for by pretending I was going to take out my wallet until he said not to worry about it.

The movie is a wonderful story about a young Scottish princess fighting for her rights. The accents are all totally authentic as Pixar chose almost strictly Glaswegians and all the details were perfect except for the stereotypes. They were all there on callous display: The cheap Scot, the violent Scot, and of course, the drunk Scot.

During a particularly tense part of the movie, the princess placates an entire castle full of highlanders by offering them whiskey. They roar with applause and head to the cellar. Then, to make matters worse, the father character (played by none other than Billy Connolly by the way) whispers to one of his servants that he needs to bring “small glasses.” So, not only are we drunks but we’re cheap too. Charming.

As usual, the most offensive stereotype was the violence. After a few jugs of booze, the clans were all at each other’s throats ready to fight to the death. I sat there in my seat seething with rage, imagining what I’d like to do to the writer of this fucking movie. I tried to explain this to my fellow dad but he kept telling me to be quiet and enjoy the film. Now I wanted to kill him too. I told him as much and he suggested I try it. I swear, if I hadn’t recently spent a few hours in jail for head butting a guy (the Glasgow kiss) I would have picked him up and thrown him right through the bloody screen!

At any rate, we made up by the end of the film and I slept it off in the passenger seat as my wife drove back. The way I remember things, it would have been a perfect night if only the people behind this project understood that you can’t make generalizations about people. I can tell you on thing for sure, if I had attended any of the test screenings for this picture, I would have sent them homeward tae think again.

A lot of parents think their kids are abnormally gifted and cute and that makes it pretty awkward for those of us who do have abnormally gifted and cute children. Our daughter is only five and has already learned to read and write. The notes she leaves us are so precious, you almost can’t read them in public because the squealing will be noise pollution.

As perceptive as she is precocious, my daughter notices that my wife is as easy on the nose as she is on the eyes. My child is a gift from God and sometimes I have to pinch myself to make sure I’m not dreaming.

She leaves these notes under our door or pushes them from the bottom of her door and each one has a unique new angle. She’s already established my wife’s beauty and wonderful fragrance so now she focuses on how awesome and cool a mom she is. I mean, how much more adorable is that than your kid? Six times as much?

And let’s not forget my wife’s skills as a parent. I think that’s all there is, right? Beautiful, nice smelling, cool, awesome, and good at mothering. And I thought God was the only being that was All Knowing.

Oh look, little old me gets a shout out. I play a game with them called Rhino Man where I pretend to be Spider-Man’s arch nemesis and chase them around the house. I always suspected I was good at it and it was a cool game but I hadn’t received confirmation until now.

Even my son gets well wishes. My daughter knows he wants nothing more than to be Spider-Man and instead of dashing his dreams, she attaches wings to them and says, “Fly little one, fly.” She has a gift for giving that Mother Teresa would envy.

Not really sure what she’s going for here. Probably another thing about my wife and flowers. I highly doubt “Gro” has anything to do with gross. Our little cherub simply doesn’t have those words in her vocabulary. She’s too pure.

Er, ahem. “Get me out of here”? Yes my angel, we will be taking you to school. But it’s only 8am, so we still have 45 minutes before you need to be there. Not sure what the issue is here. Probably just eager to learn more. It’s certainly not us.

Yeah well you know what? You can’t gob on the mirror in the fucking living room and not get a Time Out. Especially when my father-in-law is right there. You make mommy and I look like shitty parents when you act like that. Oh and it’s “m-e-a-n.”

Look, you got a five-minute Time Out for doing something gross when we had the whole family over. That’s not “mean.” It’s jurisprudence. Can you spell that word? Yeah, I didn’t think so! Oh, and sentences have things at the end of them called periods. You may want to try one out next time you’re insulting people.

It’s fairly noble to have a mommy-lie-in day where you get up with the kids and make pancakes but it is downright knightly to make those pancakes into the shape of their choice. The king of said knights is a nobleman named Jim who not only makes hearts and candy canes, he can perfectly replicate a Millennium Pancake Falcon!

This level of artistry is obviously way out of our league but by trying to come close, I’ve learned a few tricks. Here they are…

My batter was way too thick here so My Little Pony looks more like My Huge Pony.

1. THIN OUT THE BATTER

Oh, also, the instructions on the back make way too many pancakes. These are children we’re talking about here so cut each ingredient in half.

Making a Tinkerbell of this calibre without a squeeze bottle is simply not possible.

2. GET THE RIGHT TOOLS

Get yourself a squeeze bottle resembling the ones they put ketchup in at the deli. I believe they’re called “saucing bottles” and they cost about $3 at any cooking store.

When you’re done your mix, pour it back into the measuring cup before pouring it into the squeeze bottle so you have a better spout. If it’s still too thick to go in, you need to add more milk. It should be as runny as a milkshake in July.

Though this pancake looks nothing like Wolverine, I was able to get some lines in there by squeezing them on to the pan at different stages.

3. TIME YOUR LINES

The longer a line is on the pan, the darker it gets so use that to create content within the pancake. If you were to do a Spider-Man mask (nearly impossible) you’d do the eyes and the webs first, then give it a second, then fill in the holes. When you flip it over the web and eyes would be darker than the spaces between them.

This what you end up doing when you make a guy this small.

Don’t make them too small. Depending on how many kids you have, making the pancakes fist-sized means running back and forth to the stove like it’s the Industrial Revolution and you’re the kid. If you’re hungover and want to expedite things, make a big fat Simba face and she’ll be so stuffed she won’t want any more.

I tried to make a thin point from Spider-Man’s hand to his web and it broke. I should have made it fat and trimmed to fit as it cooked.

Doing sharp corners is next to impossible, but if you hand them a Batman with blobby ears he’ll think it’s something out of Wallace and Gromit. My Wolverine in number three is a good example of this mistake.

So, while the creature is cooking, get in there with your spatula and cut the bunny ears into sharp points. It’s better to cheat than to deceive.

Here’s the first one I ever did. It’s a shark and I cheated the mouth. When the kids asked what’s up I said it’s a Grandpa Shark.

Originally published on Bunch Family.