Top2Bottom: Tron Legacy

A long while and many podcasts ago, I took my own slant on the "Top 10" list - the "Top to Bottom" list, which focused on the best three things and the worst three things of whatever we were talking about.

Now, I bring it to SuperRadDad in the form of quick and dirty reviews because, well, because I barely have enough time to maintain a blog, let alone create voluminous content.

So here it is, the inaugural Top2Bottom list for "Tron: Legacy."

Toy Chest: Sprig Dino Adventure Rig

Hold onto your butts.

Tick-tock, Tick-tock.  That's the sound of time running out.

Never fear, though, because SuperRad Dad is here with another fantastic offering from Sprig Toys. 

What does the Mu love? He loves to smash things and he loves things that smash things.  This is why the Dino Adventure Rig from Sprig, which combines a truck to smash and two dinosaurs that smash, is like a slice of heaven to a 2 year old. 

Toy Chest: Sprig Dolphin Explorer Boat

Gordon's Fish Sticks, Eat Your Heart Out.

Though the Sprig Discovery Rig has gone on plenty of adventures both in the Family Room and outside on walks, one place it fears - due to its kinetic generator and other electrical parts - is the water.

Enter the Sprig Dolphin Explorer Boat.

Equal parts durable and adorable, (which is what the company's slogan should be... you're welcome Marketing.) the Dolphin Explorer comes with a Skipper with removable rain hat and backpack, a rescue boat, mommy and baby dolphin, and a life preserver.

Toy Chest: Sprig Adventure Rig

Sprig Discover Rig - Awesome.

It's undeniable: I love Sprig Toys. 

I stopped into our local Mom 'n' Pop hardware store right before Thanksgiving to pick up some specialized items that the Big Box down the road didn't have.  There in the front display was a collection of chunky, rugged-looking toys that looked cobbled straight out of Santa's workshop.   I picked one up to examine it and found it without any licensing tie-ins, "X-treme" packaging, or obnoxious mascots.  It was simple, it was classic, it was Sprig.

Something about the toy line spoke to me, and I knew I had to get it for Mu.  His interest in big tucks, adventuring, and propensity to smash things required a line of toys that would hold up to toddler abuse, but also allow him to fill in the storyline of his adventure - not to have his adventure dictated to him by the folks in Marketing.

And that's where the beauty of Sprig comes in: the Sprig guys are faceless, which means they are ready for whatever your child can imagine.

It's beginning to look a lot like Shutterfly

Every year, Lady Rad and I have the same discussion - are we sending Christmas cards? If so, to who? If so, then from where? If so, then what do we put on it? The advent of digitally uploading photos to a photo-gift site is both a blessing and a curse: a wealth of low-cost solutions are available, but pairing down 1300 photos from the past year into 3 or 4 choice ones to represent your family's entire experience from the year can be overwhelming.  Not to mention that both of the kids age so rapidly (because they are young, not because they are like Tom Hanks from 'Big') that a photo of the four of us from the Fall just isn't very representative of how our family looks right now.

Not to mention, FINDING a photo of LR and I where we don't look exhausted and haggard would be a Christmas miracle in itself.

This year, Lady Rad and I decided to eschew our hopes of a family photo card, and resolved to just find four of the cutest pictures of Mu and Q, and slap their faces on a card, send it to our closest circle, and call it Christmas.  Like past years, we'll be using Shutterfly, both because they have a good selection of Christmas Cards, and we stand a pretty good chance of not sending out the same one that everyone else has just sent.  Plus, since we managed to miss the window to send a birth announcement this year, we can kill two birds with one stone...

You know, "Unto us, a child is born... and her name is 'Q!'

"Eclectic" is my Middle Name

My iPad dropped down my recent Google searches in no paticular order:

• Christmas tree toddler
• TSA body scan for children
• Star Wars DVD original version
• Peggy Noonan
• 'Willenium' Lyrics

I know, it's absurd... I should have searched by the more accurate "Will2K" lyrics

Christmas Trees & Toddlers - the Dilema

The Mu is two-years old, and has gotten his first taste of Christmas Cheer.  Everywhere we go, he manages to point out every St. Nick and Snowman he sees.  So it is with great excitement and anticipation for him and me that we will be getting a Christmas tree soon.

This excitement is, understandably, not shared equally with Lady Rad whose current challenges involve making sure that the Mu doesn't cause too much toddler-destruction while she is needing to attend to Q's nap-training routine.  Normally, this challenge has been met by a diligent child-proofing routine every morning where Lady Rad can be reasonably confident that she can go into another room for 20 minutes while Mu is quietly playing with toys.  Brining a Noble Fir into the front room kind of screws up the entire flow that's been achieved thus far.

Game Closet: Pandemic Review

(boardgame; $34.99; 2-4 players; Ages 10+; www.zmangames.com)

"Pandemic" was a game that held very little appeal for me from reading the back of the box, until I got it home and gave it a whirl.  Like most people, the idea of board games means competition - I win so that you lose - and although I have played many video games where players cooperate to beat the computer, I had never heard of such a concept being applied to a board game.  And how could playing against a board be any fun?

"Pandemic" involves the spread of four diseases (represented by different-colored cubes) into major cities across the globe.  Players take on the roles of specialists from the CDC in Atlanta, each with their own special ability, to travel the world curing diseases in an attempt to come up with a cure for the four diseases before a catastrophic outbreak occurs.

I'm 35 now...

...so why is my face is breaking out like I'm 15? Is this my body's way of having a pre-mid-life crisis without me?

The Man-Bag: Good Enough for Chewbacca, Good Enough for Me

Wookie Fashion Statement

I maintain that the modern man has too many items to simply be carried in their pockets.  Keys, cell phone, wallet, sunglasses, MP3 player, headphones, ID badge, etc. could theoretically be carried in cargo pants or a tek-jacket, but who wants to look like they are going on a hunt in Borneo, when they are just trying to get to the store for milk? Belt clips don't help, either.  Unless you are a Contractor, Police Officer, or Batman, you should never have anything clipped to your belt - with the exception of, perhaps, a small cell phone with business dress, if absolutely necessary

When men carried traditional briefcases to and from work, finding a place for these items was natural.  But with the exception of a small population, most men don't carry briefcases anymore.  I, for one, loathe the briefcase as it is only really acceptable for the office and, even then, is pretty stuffy.  I carried one during my first year of practice and found it, ironically, impractical. 

It's a SuperRad Birthday

For my birthday this morning, Q gave me the gift of letting me sleep in... until 5a.m.

Maybe next year I'll even sleep until 7..? Dare to dream!

Catch of the Day

The SuperRad Fam went up to Lady Rad's parents for Thanksgiving this weekend. In addition to a snow-covered forest and coma-inducing levels of food, Team SuperRad got to experience another holiday cliche - sharing a bed with a toddler.

Because we had only one pack-n-play available, we decided that the Mu was old enough to be able to sleep on an inflatable mattress next to our bed while Q took the pack-n-play. This idea was short-lived when Mu informed us that his new digs were "spooky." He crawled into bed with us and the next thing I knew, he and Lady Rad somehow managed to take up about 90% of the bed.

Game Closet: Hive

Portable, Durable, Kid-proof

Since making my 2010 resolution to play more traditional tabletop games, Lady Rad and I have rekindled a hobby that has been dormant since the time I insisted the Backgammon set that she inherited from her grandmother was haunted.

I mean, how is it possible for me to lose every single time? Haunted game board, that's how.

So in my desire to find other, non-cursed, two-player games, I discovered this delightful game from 2001 that carries the "Mensa Select" seal of approval.

Pump it Up

This IS what she was talking about, right?

I relish my role as the provider for the SuperRad family.  Most of the time when I think about my role, I think of the normal things - going to work to support Lady Rad as a S@HM to our kids, making enough money to pay our mortgage, mowing the lawn, covering a leaky roof with a tarp in a torrential downpour, etc.

But here was one I never really imagined: Lady Rad's breast-pump finally called it quits this morning; sleep-training Q and addressing Mu's tantrums left her no time to pack the kids up to get another one.  I had our car this evening and so, in the continuing deluge, drove out to Target at closing time and am now the proud owner of a new Lansinoh double-barreled shotgun.

The Importance of Barber-ism

Most of my childhood haircuts involved my mother taking me to a place called Bo Ricks (does that place even exist anymore?). It was your typical chop shop for cheap haircuts ($6, I remember - that was the big selling point), and a woman would always cut my hair.  It was fine, it served its purpose, and my mom got another errand off of her checklist.

But there was a magic time when my dad took me to his barber - a guy named Franco.  Franco's shop was in the same city as my dad's office, so I only got to go see Franco when I went I went to work with my dad on a weekday.  I only recall going to Franco's once, and I don't remember the haircut he gave me, but I remembered the joy that I felt being in a place inhabited only by men with my dad - it was a right of passage.

ProTip: Emergency Chocolate

One of the things I've learned about Lady Rad, and women in general, over the years is the emotional catharsis that chocolate brings.  For whatever reason: biochemical, sociological, or metaphysical, chocolate is celebrated by Lady Rad in good times and bad.

The irony of this is, of course, Lady Rad's desire to maintain a hot bod, and therefore her insistence that chocolate should not be readily available in the house.  But when she has gone through a full day of balancing S@HM responsibilities - balancing two children who either desire to cling to her or spit up on her at all times of the day while preparing dinner and doing laundry - at the end of the day, chocolate is as imperative as a scalding hot bath.

Which is why I've started to have Emergency Chocolates on hand for whenever the occasion calls.  Nothing fancy, just a variety of fun-sized candy bars stashed secretly in our home - the whereabouts known only to me.  Whenever Lady Rad has that "Calgon, take me away" look on her face after the kids are asleep, I slip into the kitchen, find my secret stash, and produce a cocoa-based offering to the goddess of hearth and home.

She Sleeps!!!

It happened, it finally happened! One day shy of 12 weeks old and Q slept through the entire night without waking - from 6pm until 5:50am.

I owe this incredible event not just to the Bible of baby books which has become highly prized in the SuperRad family, 'Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child' (which turns sleep training into a magic trick if you follow the directions), but to Lady Rad's careful adherence to the book's advice to watch the sleep patterns of the child and "catch the sleep wave" when it hits.  It hit last night at about 5:00pm, and Lady Rad was on like Robotron - in the middle of preparing Family Dinner, she handed the cooking reigns over to me (thankfully, it was just the pasta that I had to take over the finish line - no one can boil pasta like I can), got Q into her bath, and settled into 2 marathon nursing sessions which got our little girl to Sleepytime after about an hour, and with almost no fuss.

Can this mean that Lady Rad and my nights will start to become our own again? I'm not holding my breath any time soon.  But little by little, Q has been sleeping longer and longer.  Hope in the SuperRad home runs high.

Now we just have to figure out how to transition her out of our bedroom and into her shared room with Mu, without the wheels coming off of Mu's great sleep.  Yet I have no doubt in Lady Rad's abilities, or the provisions of Someone Else.

Game Closet: Smallworld

($49.99; 2-5 players; Ages 10+; daysofwonder.com)

(five stars)

Resolving this year to branch out and play more traditional tabletop games has lead me to so many delights that could never be captured by a videogame.  With all of the advances in texture modeling, 3D animation, motion capture, storytelling, etc., some types of games are just meant to be played on a flat surface... and I don't mean a plasma.

"Smallworld" from Days of Wonder is one of those types of games.

Somewhere, an Orthodontist just got its wings.

Artists' Interpretation of Photo

Lady Rad just sent me a picture of our little Q having her first thumb-suck.

The SuperRad home happens to be a pro-thumb-suck family.  Q's brother, Mu, was a thumb-sucker from the womb.  Nothing seems to pacify him quite like Captain Thumbsby, as it has become known; its always available, never misplaced, and looks darn adorable.  If The Captain can provide the same calming effect on Q, that's well-worth the cost of braces in my opinion.

I stil can't believe that Q turns 3 months this week. It's hard for me to even wrap my head around the fact that 90 days has passed since her cannonball-like entrance into this world.  For the uninitiated, Lady Rad was checked into the hospital at 5:00a.m., began pushing at 5:55a.m., and Q was here by 6.  Now she's cooing, holding her head up with little support, laughing, and - thankfully - having an audience with The Captain.

Time flies.

Who is SuperRad Dad?

'SuperRadDad' is a place where hopes and dreams come alive...

Or its a place where one guy, who works day in, day out to support his beautiful wife (hereinafter, Lady Rad) to be a Stay-at-Home Mom (hereinafter, S@HM) to their two amazing children - "Mu" and "Q," blogs about life, fatherhood, work, play, and the challenge of being a modern dad with classic sensibilities.

Every journey begins with the first step; I guess this is mine.  Come watch me trip.

-SRD