Toyota Prius: Best. Car. Ever.

Having owned a Toyota Prius hybrid for three years I am finally confident in making a well-informed, critical review of this revolutionary car that intrigues so many. A ReInvented Daddy can often spend seemingly 25 hours a day behind the wheel taxiing children from one destination to another. My kids need a Franklin Planner to keep their social/school/atheletic/dance/birthday party schedules coordinated. The ReInvented Wife drives a half an hour each way to work each day and I usually put more miles on than she does, seemingly going nowhere fast. This means I need a great car and I have found one.

In 2006 I had never bought a foreign car but when I looked at the options Detroit was offering me I felt insulted so I voted with my checkbook. Yes, the environmental benefit of promoting hybrid technology was important to me but I put out the big bucks because it made too much financial sense. As a trend I am much better at love than cards so I don't brag about financial decisions too often. However even the most anal CPA type would have to be happy with my math.

The most important factor in the Prius' value is cost of ownership v. resale value. I trimmed about a hundred dollars a month off of my personal budget in gas savings over my previous beast of burden, a Dodge Intrepid. That means that over the 5 years that it is financed for I will save approximately $6000. Pennsylvania and the USA gave me $3000 in hybrid helping cash so I can chop $9000 off of my sales price, which, with taxes, was a little over $25,000. At the time of this posting a 5 year old Prius in excellent shape has a blue book value of $14,885. That means that I could optimally be driving I car that drills envy at every gas pump for a net cost of about a thousand dollars over five years versus keeping my old car and hoping nothing ever went wrong. I'm not making this up.

Now to be more forward thinking consider that gas is actually pretty low due to the current Great Recession and it figures only to go up. Each time gas soars my resale value solidifies.

We still have a three row GM option-barge for when needed but nothing cheers up a ReInvented Dad like filling up the tank with a twenty and the looks of "pump envy" are satisfying too. Cant' wait for Chevy Volt.

Alzheimer's Soundtrack: Rehab

As much as I love the way the Amy Winehouse sings this retro classic, I am almost as impressed by the director who put on this stageshow. I really expect Ed Sullivan to stroll onstage afterwards. No one does sixties soul like Winehouse. Unfortunately her voice has gone down the tubes with her drug habit. To bad she couldn't stick the rehab ... no, no, no....

ReInventing Fatty: Dieting By Addition

First let's get this out of the way. 2 days ago I was at 245 and this morning I weighed in at 243. This may seems like a nice start but keep in mind that the body stores a week of groceries up your ass ... not my opinion, just fact. That's why the typical all-American fat guy, you know, the one who doesn't really think he's "obese", he's just 70 lbs over what "Doctors" call "Healthy, can usually drop 5 - 10 lbs in the first couple days of dieting. Simply put, when fatso stops feeding the beast a lot of luggage gets off-loaded the first couple days. One good trip to the "Pizza Pigout" buffet can put all that junk in the trunk. It is the 2-4 lbs that you lose per week after week one that tell the tale.

The easiest way to make a profound effect on your waist is to add two basic elements to your menu. This is dieting by addition not subtraction. Don't start a diet by intimidating yourself with torturous sacrifice. Instead add elements to your plate that will cause you to lose weight without triggering any martyr complex. Fortunately these two additions that I recommend are cheap and easy to incorporate into any meal: Fiber and Water.

Fiber and water work hand in hand to achieve several excellent dietary benefits. On the subject of weight loss, these two basics in the form of a bowl of Fiber One cereal (I use lite chocolate soymilk) with a big glass of H20, can fill you up with ultralow calories, while satiating your guts desire for protein. Long term, fiber works like a scrubbing pad on your colon, reducing the chances of cancer, infections and zillions of other ills. Since water makes up 90% of our body mass it only makes sense that a steady flow of clean fresh aqua will keep any body cleaner of vile bodily humours than not.

Fresh veggies are a great way to ingest fiber along with all the vitamins and minerals we lack. Feel free to indulge in the tastiest low-cal dips and dressings that you can find, you literally can't overdue the dip if it's clinging to a carrot.

Recentling I discovered a wonderful line of low-cal, high fiber soups from Progresso that give you a whole days recommended minimum of fiber in one can (forget portions, who can eat half a can?) with only 180 calories damage. To put it in perspective, if you could jam 10 cans of this yummy goodness into your mouth each day you would probably still lose 2 pounds a week because it's all water and fiber.

Remember to keep lots of bottles of water in the fridge. You shouldn'nt be able to open the 'fridge without staring at a bottle. Get a nice, reusable 24 ounce bottle and chug one every couple hours, certainly before and with every meal. You simply will never be hungry.

The key isn't to starve yourself. Fall in love with food that loves your body and you will never be hungry again

Fashionable 2 B Blind

Last year my daughter told me she was having trouble with her vision and might need glasses so I took her to our child optometrist of choice, Dr Crosseyes, who told us that she was just fine. Well three weeks ago I get a notice from school that she has failed a mandated vision exam and needs to be checked by a doctor. I gave her my own vision tests which she failed with flying colors.

We just got back home from visiting Dr CrossEyes again and again he doesn't think Sam needs glasses as much as she WANTS glasses and judging from her reaction I agree... I was duped. You never saw someone look so disappointed that they had healthy, fully functional eyes. Clearly the fashion of wearing glasses trumped the nuisance that is wearing glasses. As a four-eyed freak of 35 years I testified to her luck but she didn't want to hear any of it. Clearly, among 9 year old girls, myopia is all the fashion rage.

I finally did manage to calm her disappointment with one clinging hope. There was a reasonable chance she would need braces. A girl can dream.

ReInventing Fatty

I should not have been surprised when I weighed myself this morning. My first, post-Christmas post mortem showed my current tonnage at 245 lbs. That's the equivalent of two of my twelve year old son stuffed into my clothes with a spare Thanksgiving turkey stuffed in there somewhere. My wife and daughter would have to jam in with a 32" flatscreen TV to match my displacement.

Meanwhile gravity has not been kind to me as it's effect has increased. Ankles and knees are still holding up the load but I don't have to listen hard to hear the stress moans. I like to think about my brick house as a sturdy structure but it is as old as I am and I wouldn't want to be living on the bottom floor if two more floors got dropped on it. I won't try to find an analogy for my rapidly melting jowls.

One of the greatest health risks for a stay at home dad is the Incredible Expanding Gut. If your used to working in an office, imagine if they put your desk in the kitchen. Add a stressful holiday where the only outlet for stress is eating and watching sports on TV until your ass sprouts roots and you have a recipe for Diabetes. It's time for me to stop the madness.

Just so you know, I have been on a diet for about 35 years with varying results. Since I have been staying at home with the kids the battle has been more a retreat but I am ready to put all of my years of dietetic knowledge to use. Tomorrow I will unveil the basics of my diet and the results from the first two days. Nothing short of a 50 lb loss will be considered a success but I'll be freaking if I can slice a small canned ham off my belly by Chinese New Years.

Christmas Miracles

It's still early Christmas morning and we will be getting together with both sides of the family for the second round later in the day but it's not too early to appreciate a couple legit Xmas miracles (yes, I still use "Xmas" and it's not part of a War On Christmas... it's because I'm lazy):

- My brother and his daughters showed up at my mothers house last night, on time and in force. This is no small achievement as they tend to either not show, or show a half hour before I have to leave for my in-laws. Since my mom still clings to the notion of a big happy family she holds off on both gift opening and crab boiling until they arrive so I get to be late virtually every year. I'm sure everyone who has to do two families on Christmas Eve has a similar story if not worse but this coming off on time with full turnout was truly... an Xmas Miracle.

- I remembered to get a gift for everyone to unwrap under the tree this morning. It's a tradition in my family dating back generations that someone should end up disappointed and slighted by Santa due to Daddy's nearly-criminal negligence. It almost happened again this year as I gave my wife her gift early in a more romantic setting (no snickering, it was a laptop, not a lap dance). I didn't think about the Christmas morning ramifications until Christmas Eve morning while walking the aisles of a drugstore. Thanks to the ubiquitous fen shue desktop water fountain, everyone had a gift to unwrap under the tree. The fact that this seems such a low bar to overcome shows just how much this is ... an Xmas Miracle.

- Barely anyone nibbled off of the $80 antipasto meat trays we bought for both family fetes. While many people would look at this and grouse, "What a waste, they must all hate me and think I have terrible taste." I see this and think, "This is why God invented freezers. I'll be feasting on Sorporaseta Salami, Mortadella with nuts, Pruscutto, Asiago and Parmasean for two years." ... an Xmas Miracle that tastes good.

- On a morning when there are no stores open to tempt and no scheduling room to allow for a self-distructive casino trek, I wake up with a full tank of gas and zero Christmas debt to pay back ... a G** D****d Xmas Miracle.

- Literally as I am preparing to save and post this ode to gratitude a Norton pop-up causes Internet Explorer to close out. In a panicked fit I reopen IE and go to blogspot where amazingly my post had been autosaved as a draft ...truly the greatest Xmas Miracle of them all

Merry Xmas Every1 !

Meditations On The Kitchen

Men who choose to pioneer the domestic wilderness must always be aware of who's territory they are treading upon. There are boundaries that you cannot see and emotional pitfalls are lurking were you least suspect them. You need to look for invisible turf markers and steer clear of hallowed ground. Above all, tread lightly in Mommy's kitchen.

When I got married I knew I had closed the biggest deal of my life. Mommy was and is beautiful, just to look at. Like most men, looks and sensuality were all I really noticed about her at first and, being incredibly shallow, that probably would have been enough to get me to the altar. However by the time I said, “I do”, I knew that she was so much more. She was funny, she was brilliant, she loved football. Most importantly she loved to make me happy. However, when our honeymoon flight touched down and we settled into domestic tranquility the last thing I expected was that she could cook. No, I would have to be the chef in the household.

In the four years of courtship that culminated in our nuptials Mommy had never shown the ability to peel a banana let alone cook a meal. She lived with her Sicilian mother and never failed to take advantage of that fact. Overcleaning, overcooking and gambling were “Nunny”s three big vices. When I said, “I do” I presumed that only the gambling gene had passed down to her daughter.

As we began our life together something quite surprising occurred. My wife of mere days who had never boiled water walked into the kitchen and prepared a wonderful Italian Sunday dinner. Pasta, fried chicken and garlic bread were prepared to intoxicating perfection. Even the cauliflower was presented the only way I have ever been able to digest it. Perhaps it was Sicilian genetics. More likely it was twenty-five years of watching her mother cook four hours each day. Either way the 9.5 that I married became a perfect 10 when I found out how well she could cook.

Despite my wife's kitchen skills, we ate out a lot, as do most newlyweds. Sandwiches were more than acceptable dinner fare in those Double-Income-No-Kids years. After children came dining became even more informal. We both worked long hours through the first four years of parenting so who “prepared” dinner usually fell to who made it home first. Still, when time permitted a big dinner, Mommy was the queen of the kitchen.

A microscopic part of the decision for me to stay home with the kids was that with an adult in the house full time we could eat home cooked meals everyday. In addition to keeping money that would otherwise have gone to McDonald's, we had both grown up in families where everyone got together once a day for dinner. This was invaluable time when days got dissected, plans got made and gossip was swapped. This is when real family business gets done. Traditions like this cement a clan. Thus I dedicated myself to having food on the table every evening. Mind you, it is not always a hearty family menu, as I believe it is more important how you eat than what you eat. I am not above serving potato chips and dip as a side dish because I know the non-stop conversation will be nourishing enough.

I now do about 90% of the cooking in the house. Even when Mommy cooks I do 90% of the chopping and cutting. It literally makes me ill to watch her cut left-handed. Each stroke looks like Step One of Hara-Kari. However, after three years I am careful not to take liberties with Mommy's kitchen. I am only renting it for a time. This means not putting essentials on the top shelf where only I can reach them. It means not replacing appliances, large or small without consultation. Most importantly it means never, ever, referring to the commissary as “my kitchen”. A woman wants to know that regardless of the current circumstances the kitchen is and will always be, her birthright.

For fathers out there who don't get the message, imagine if your wife decided to go into the doll business and she took over your garage. When you came home from work the next day all of your tools were cleaned and relegated to the basement closet. All your bolts and fasteners were filed in Tupperware out of reach behind mothball scented hats on the closet shelf. Your collection of slightly used caulk is gone with the trash and above the workbench glares a neon sign proclaiming, “Hello Dolly!”

So what if you haven't “Gone Fishin'” since the Reagan administration, you want that plaque on your garage wall. Even if you have to wait until retirement to clean it, that garage is your birthright as a man. Someday that canoe in the corner will get wet and someday you will teach your son how to unhook a fish. Well, that kitchen is Mommy's birthright too and one of these days she is going to kick you out of there.

Respecting traditional boundaries can be very important in maintaining a relationship. Sometimes the most antiquated notions can convey the most timeless respect. Mommy has to fight with herself everyday when she leaves her house. She fills a role that no woman on television or in storybooks modeled in her childhood. Strong women who supported their families did abound in this nation prior to the Clinton administration but if they ever snuck into books or movies it was as a “triumph of will” cautionary tale. Our culture has not prepared her to be the hunter any more than it has prepared us to be the nurturers.
As confident as my career girl can appear on the outside, on the inside a part of her still wants to be June Cleaver. Daydreams of long afternoons spent talking with friends on the phone while mastering the perfect scone recipe can ease a lot of evolutionary growing pains. That's why the plaque on the kitchen wall says, “Mommy's Kitchen” and the plaque in the garage says, “Gone Fishin'”.

Alzheimer's Soundtrack: Potential Breakup Song

When I grew up the first thing to go was milk ... I doubt I drank mild without benefit of coffee for fifteen years after college. Then went video games, then finally music. Face it, the Clash is to a fifteen year old what Buddy Holly was to me in 1977. Legend yeah, but he ain't no Electric Light Orchestra. The best part of having kids late is that you get all of that good stuff back.

It started with milk and peanut butter. Then I got back the video games and now I've got back pop, bubblegum music. Oh by the way, my nine year old daughters favorite album: London Calling by the Clash circa 1979. Here's my favorite from her Ipod (great music for vacuuming at 10 in the A.M.):

Sorry CheeseHeads But....

So I am at Sundays game, Steelers V. Packers, Clash O' Dynasties, Heinz field rightfully decorated in it's best "frozen tundra" look. Now, I like to think I have the best season tix in the stadium (which means the best in all of the NFL, right?), and virtually all of the fans in our row come to every game regardless of health or childcare arrangements. Unfortunately, the man who owns the three seats directly behind me sells his seats 80% of the time. For big games that means often sitting in front of outta' towners who drive my wife to a rabid frenzy. Last Sunday was no exception.

As we walk up to our seats we almost drop our beers at the sight of three Green & Gold wearing Packer Backers. In the middle sat the largest and the loudest who looked and sounded just like Drew Carey regailed in an honest-to-goodness foam cheese head. By the tail end of the game the only thing keeping me from tossing this braut-worst suckin' goof over the railing was the fact that he had brought his teenage daughter with him (no doubt for protection from abuse). After the now pathetic Steeler defense gave up yet another big TD with 5 minutes to go I was deflated. He, on the other hand, didn't shut up for the next 4.59 seconds.

By the time the last second ticked off the game clock I was in a catatonic trance, unable to see anything but Ben Roethlisberger and the ball. I couldn't speak and all I could hear was the incessant barking of man from New Jersey who for some reason decided it was his life's passion to follow the ghost of Vince Lombardi from city to city. As the clock landed on zero the ball was in the air, surely headed out of bounds. Steelers rookie receiver Mike Wallace, who is listed at 6ft. even, must have stretched 3 extra inches to making a miraculous, tippy toes touchdown.

As my wife and I screamed and beat each other I could finally smile as I looked back to the Cheese wearing, won't shut up, Packer Backer Mother F***er who, at last, was silent...

... priceless.

How Yinz' Doin?

Okay, so I really don't know what I'm doing with this blog thing but.... well, sometimes the best way to get started is to just get started. Right?

Here is my mission statement for this little slice of bandwidth: To be a hangout for modern dads who elect to stay at home with the kids because it is the right thing to do for all concerned. Many of us work from home and many more are full time homemakers making it possible for our wives to stretch their career horizons.

ReInventing Daddy will feature a lot more than the bleatings of a middle aged haus-mensch. Functional advice for the hapless male will be fertilized with the funny, the weird and the timely. If it strikes a cord with one person out there then we can put up the "Mission Accomplished" Banner.

That's it... post # 1.