It Was a Good Run

I think it's safe to say that few who know me would nominate me for Parent of the Year.

Last week marked the last time that "The Simpsons" will be on at our house while the kids are awake... at least until they're in, oh, maybe middle school. It's too bad, too, because it was always a fun 'Daddy activity' with the kids -- when Mommy had a Pampered Chef show and had to be out of the house by 6pm on a weekday, channel 47 went on and we got to watch an hour's worth together. (Otherwise, it's "Mommy's news.") Before AJ was born, we used to watch it every night. Brett used to come running from whatever part of the house he was in as soon as he heard that angelic music at the head of the show's opening, yelling, "Simpsons on!" After Lexie saw that once or twice, of course, she was appropriately aping him, so that's always been a fun time of night.

I always knew that the time would come when Brett would become a bit too impressionable to continue that tradition, but I assumed it would end because he would speak or behave badly in public -- perhaps suggest to an authority figure that (s)he should eat his shorts -- like Bart. In reality, what happened was a bit worse and more guilt-inducing. During an episode from season 16 -- "Mobile Homer" (#GABF07) [LEARN] [WATCH] -- Homer repeatedly gets injured. I noticed that Brett wasn't laughing too much during those scenes, so I made an extra effort to laugh myself and to not-so-subtly remind both of the kids that it was all just pretend.

Cut to 4:30am that night, when I hear Brett calling for "Daddy!" from his bedroom. He had a nightmare about my getting caught under our garage door and spiders crawling out of my mouth. Nice job, huh?

Batman Flees

Discarded title for this post:
We Have a Problem: Houston.

When Gimli was asked to leave Green Bay, I wonder if the guys in the front office knew he planned on just rebuilding the Packers in Houston. Free agent Ahman Green made his decision this afternoon to leave the Packers for the Texans.

*picks jaw up off of floor*

Yes, it's true. Despite already having Ron Dayne and Samkon Gado on their roster, the Texans apparently saw a need to fill a wide receiver position. This should shake up our draft decisions somewhat. At least one would hope so.

I should have seen coming a mile away -- as soon as we were all focused on Brett, Ahman ran to find some love. ...Actually, no. That makes no sense. If he was feeling left out or second-fiddle, then Houston would not have been his answer. Dammit. I can't even find a good excuse to make myself feel better about this.