The Origin of the Child Leash

Seems to be quite the hot topic with a lot of parents. To leash, or not to leash. Fuck’s sake, some kids I see running wild could also use a matching mussel, perhaps Hello Kitty will bring out a range for Christmas this year. One can only hope.

In all seriousness, I am not a fan of the leash. I don’t even really like to tether the dog, but have no choice as she isn’t quite as up on the English language as our 4 year old human.

After reading some rant today on Facebook about a child of a leash I got to thinking about the lighter side of child abuse. One of the posts was carrying on about some old lady pulling a kid along like it was a resentful pug unwilling to take a bath. Disgusting to say the least. Another post started raving on about how we have not needed leashes for children in the past, so why all of a sudden do we need them now.

Hold that thought….. Have you ever asked yourself the question: What is the origin of the child leash?……

If not then never mind, I did all the work for you. Turns out there is actually some kind of circa 1990 style HTML homage to the history of restraining your toddlers. From what I have determined, this whole leash business started early in the 17th century, perhaps late 16th century. (Although this website makes note of telling us they have found no evidence in the 16th century yet).

Take a look at this baby. It is a painting of a young Louis XV with a child leash on. I highly doubt the leash is of any consequence that young Louis pictured here would turn out to be
known as Louis the Beloved, but perhaps being restricted to a one meter radius around his caregiver  fostered a sense of empathy.

Hell, good enough for the French, good enough for… ummm…. Just don’t bind your child folks, it isn’t a dog.

Oh yeah, after almost a year without so much as a whisper on the blog, I am back. 🙂

Dinner Time Science and Vegetarians

The little guy has been on a vegetarian crusade for a few months now. Sausages excluded. According to toddler logic, sausages are actually vegetables. Sure, I know you can get vegetarian sausages, but to be honest I prefer my meals newspaper free.

Anyway, we were eating dinner the other night and we got to the meat issue once again. Got to say I almost felt like I was being mocked, we had been cooking a boneless lam roast in the BBQ for the last four hours, it was delicious. To us perhaps.

‘I don’t like the meat’

He says, before even having a bite. He is not usually a fussy eater by any means, but the additional chewing effort and texture of meat has just turned him off. Fair enough I guess. We are actually at a point where we allow him to chew pieces up, ‘turn them into sausage’ and spit them out. Bit of a compromise, but it is a start.

A few days previous to this occasion, I was explaining to food pyramid to him. Not to much success, but it is better to start early right? Went through a few foods he knew and explained where they fit. ‘You need to eat a balance of these because it’s good for you. That kind of stuff.

Ok, back to the lamb. My partner must have had a burst of inspiration, and in that moment explained meat contained iron. The little guy has an obsession with superheros at the moment, Ironman in particular.

Well, Ironman is made of iron. Meat has iron in it, if you want to be big and strong like Ironman, you should eat your meat.

Seemed like a valid enough idea. He took to it, kind of. We then went into a bit of a science lesson, why the fuck not. Tony Stark would have been pleased had he been there.

I explain how iron is in a thing called the periodic table of elements, and they make up everything. But they are so small we can’t see them.

‘They are like little tiny legos, everything is made of little elements, like legos’. The partners analogy was superb I think. 🙂

‘But if you look really close, you could see them’

He returns, ok we are going there. I then explain what a microscope is, and say maybe when he is a little older we can have a look at one. ‘Just like your toy pirate telescopes, but they look at little things instead.’

Don’t think we have won the meat battle, but the science crash course was good for a laugh. Who knows, he might absorb something. 🙂

Insulted by a Toddler v2.0

Such is life, I used to be a pretty active person. I have never felt the need to step foot in a gym, but we both joined the local gym last year. True to form, neither of us have been yet. (6 months later)

I did make a news years resolution to go to the gym. But this is still yet to eventuate. I am pretty happy with how I am, but you know, I miss the physical activity and I do feel it. Life just gets in the way as I’m sure you all know.

Our toddler, in all his wisdom managed to insult me again the other day. I am starting to think he does it on purpose.

So, I was getting dressed for work in the morning. He was in our bedroom with the dog, going about their usual morning routine. Now, I am the kind of person that can’t be ass’ed un-clipping my belt, un-zipping my pants etc, I just pull the bastards up and be done with it. As I begin to wriggle into my pants, he begins to laugh.

‘Dad, your butt’s jiggly’

‘It’s like jelly’

Of course, met with laughter from my partner. The fuck kid, did you just call me fat?!?

Once again, insulted by the 3ft tall midget.

Time to make good on that new years resolution…… My butt looks like jelly, god damn.

There will likely be a lesson for him out of this. Something along the lines of…. NEVER SAY THAT TO YOUR MUM dude… 🙂

Shit Tony Abbott Says #4

Tony Abbott, the gift that keeps on giving has had a pretty good week. This week, the flavour has been the standard idiocy, with a side of mutiny. We (Australia) almost lost our beloved, the honourable, Tony Abbott.

This one is just too easy, but I can’t resist.

“Good Government starts today”

Wow dude… For the international readers, you need to realise that he has been Prime Minister since September 2013….. But never fear, as per Tony’s claim, we have now had almost five business days of ‘good government.’ What a DICKHEAD.

In addition to this weeks instalment, an idea raised by fellow blogger from ‘A Momma’s View‘ this week I am opening the floor to you guys. It is just so hard keeping up with this moron that I am requesting your help.

Depending on how it goes, I would like to introduce ‘Shit Tony Abbott Says‘ as a static page on the blog. If you have some favourites, or would like to contribute on a weekly basis, please head over to the contact page and submit your quotes.

If all goes well and we have some interest, I will post your quote/s weekly with a link back to your blog and/or other. Although, I do ask that you reference where you got the quote if you can. 🙂

Christians Against Dinosaurs

Poor T-Rex can’t catch a break. bastardised for his taste in food, given small, useless arms and now being attacked by Christianity.

Yep, this exists. There is also a Facebook page called ‘Christians Against Dinosaurs.’ I couldn’t help but laugh. Check this link too for a best-of collection. 🙂

Last night, my partner showed me a post from a concerned mother ranting about the impact dinosaurs are having on her children. Dinosaurs are evil, apparently.

So, true to Christian form, she burned her children’s dinosaur toys at the stake. Well, stake not included, but you get the idea. She burned them good and proper. Need to make sure they don’t come back to life right, a dinosaur zombie apocalypse is the last thing we need. Better pray on that tonight.

In all honesty, I apologise to any of you who are religious, I don’t mean to offend you. But seriously, what did dinosaurs ever do to Jesus? Or is ‘dinosaur’ really a codename for Jews?

Either way, wow, there are people out there who debate the existence of dinosaurs. Fuck man, to quote the late great Bill Hicks, ‘I think you were put here to test my faith dude.’

You may also be happy to know, like I was, that there is a somewhat dinosaur revolution going on against their oppressors. Another Facebook group exists, ‘Dinosaurs Against Christianity.’ I am now a member of it to show my support for the T-Rex’s noble cause. That is, the right to be recognised as a legitimate part of history… Just like Jesus is… Umm no, sorry bad joke.

To all the dinosaur skeptics out there, let me make one thing clear. There is NOTHING in the Bible that says Jesus WAS NOT a raptor. Nothing, not one piece of evidence. He may very well have been a raptor, or maybe a T-Rex. Or maybe just a religious allegory for the ‘sun’. Who knows. Just throwing it out there.

Viva La Dinosaur’!!!

Hey guys, What is Fisting? – Cards Against Humanity with a Pre-Teen

We must be getting old, something I tell myself more and more in recent times. Last year, we went out for a few drinks, only to return home with some friends about half an hour later to play Monopoly instead.

I used to enjoy going out, when I was in my early twenties’ I was out most weekends, now I look around and think, damn, I am ten years older than the median age here…. Time to go.

On that note, my partner and I decided to start a monthly games night at our place. We both love our board games, card games and that sort of thing, and a few of our friends also do. What we all have in common is not having fun standing around a bunch of drunk teens at the pub. Times have changed.

A few weeks ago we had one such night. However, we also had my sister-in-laws son over for the night. He started high school this year, I for one think he is far too innocent to be in high school. Time for an education…

So the sister-in-law drops him off that afternoon, and we mention we are having some people over to play a ‘card game’. Said game is commonly known as ‘Cards Against Humanity‘. For those of you that know it, I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. For those that don’t, at this point in this post you need to answer the following questions:

1. Are you easily offended / do you take offence to bad, bad, humour? If so, please stop reading. Now.
2. Are you religious? If so, please stop reading. Now.

Well, we did the responsible thing and told her that we would be playing this game. My partner said something along the lines of, ‘we will put a movie on for the kids, he shouldn’t be playing this’….

Hah… I answer, ‘Nah, he will be fine’. On that note, sister-in-law gives the go ahead to let him play.

What a fucking night this was.

Our friends come around and we order pizza for dinner. Then, the game comes out. The pre-teen, currently in that point of life where he is torn between being a kid, and joining the adults, comes running over to sit next to me. Curious as to what this game was, and how to play it. We explain that the idea is to make the most offensive and / or rude statement you can from the cards you are given.

He opts to sit a few hands out. A few hands later, I am pretty sure he thought we were all speaking a different language. I finally get him confident to play, get him his hand of cards, and off we went.

In the next few hours, I couldn’t stop laughing. For a few reasons. Below are some of the questions to come from his mouth, all in a period of about ten minutes:

1. What is fisting?
2. What is incest?
3. What is double penetration?

At this point, please do not forward this post on to child protective services. Come on, he is in high school, if he does not know what fisting is, he will soon, and will know a lot worse than that. Can’t tell you how funny and awkward having to answer some of these questions was. Great times.

There is also another good reason to play Cards Against Humanity with a pre-teen. They manage to pick awesome cards, and read them out without actually understanding what they mean, or how funny they are.

Well yes, I may be going to hell now. I figure, if I am, I may as well stake a claim for the presidential suite. If you like a good laugh, and can take a joke, I recommend getting this game. It should also be reiterated, the goal is to offend, what comes out is not an accurate representation of anyone’s way of thinking. No burning crosses etc at our place.

A Politically Correct Happy Holidays Greeting

I knocked this up out of boredom last Christmas. Enjoy.

Please accept with no obligation, either expressed or implied, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, non-addictive, gender neutral, celebration of the summer solstice holiday, practised within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious/secular persuasion of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all.

Furthermore to this, I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling, medically-uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2015, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make Australia great (not to imply that Australia is necessarily greater than any other country or is the only great country in the southern/northern/other hemispheres), and without regard to the race, creed, colour, age, physical ability, religious faith, or sexual preference of the wishee.

By accepting this greeting, you are accepting these terms: This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for her/himself or others, is void where prohibited by law, and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher.