Everyone remembers when their first born could sit up, crawl, walk and talk.  In fact, most people record it in a baby book just in case their memory fails them or they make claims about such milestones that are completely absurd and need to be called out for making such unrealistic claims about their child.  What most parents don’t remember is when their second child accomplished the same milestones.  They know the approximate age, somewhere between zero and three years, but don’t ask them if it’s recorded anywhere,  because chances are it isn’t.  They have two legs and two arms what do they care when they actually began to use their legs and arms for something worthwhile?  The one thing I do remember about Ted is when he stopped shitting his pants.  That happened about a week and a half before Christmas, I think he was walking at that point in his life as well, but I’m not positive.

In all reality, these milestones are somewhat meaningless as long as they are eventually able to accomplish most of them, especially the not shitting in their pants milestone (which I still sometimes have trouble with).  However, Tod accomplished something recently that is a life changing milestone that couldn’t have made me more proud.  No, he didn’t finally make a basket in his mini nerf hoop, he didn’t actually make contact with a wiffle ball, nor did he tell me that girls are the only way to go (not sure I will ever hear that one, but there definitely is some upside to that path if he chooses it, but I will elaborate on the upside at a later date)  What he did do was way better than all three of those things combined, he learned how to use the remote control for our television.  Bravo! Bravo! Bravo!  Not sure why we didn’t hammer home an intensive remote control tutorial right after he learned how to walk, to all you new parents out there, don’t make the same mistake we did.

The sky is the limit for this kid, who knows what he will become now that he has figured out how to use a remote control, ok, maybe I am exaggerating, he’s either going to be a tv critic (and not a very good one because from what I can tell he likes everything, he even watches Dora intently) or the guy at the sports bar who turns on all the tv’s and helps people switch their tv from the Detroit Lions game to another game after the first quarter when the Lions are down by six touchdowns.

Regardless of what this new skill set has to offer for him, it is truly amazing for Shirley and I.  I imagine days where we don’t even get out of bed at all, the kids just go down, Tod turns on the remote and away they go.  Granted, Tod is still claiming he’s scared and needs us to go down there with him,  but I’m not falling for that,  “come on Tod, you know how to use the remote, there’s nothing to be scared of, if you push this button way over here it gets rid of any monsters you may encounter.”  That’s one of the few upsides of kids, you can lie to them about just about anything with no consequences.

There are still a couple of things that need to be ironed out before we have reached complete Nirvana at our house, but I feel like we are pretty damn close.  The first issue is that all of the cereal is on the top shelf of the pantry, so after about a half a show the kids start complaining about being hungry and needing some cereal.  This requires one of us to get out of bed to retrieve cereal.  The problem with this is that they can never make up their minds as to which cereal they are in the mood for, similar to me when I’m trying to pick out a candy bar,  Skittles seems to always be the right choice but for the Green Apple which is an after taste that can be almost impossible to overcome.  Obviously you can’t go wrong with Milky Way, but then there’s Take Five, Screw it, I’ll just buy all of them.  What I do know is I am never buying a Payday or Baby Ruth, I can’t believe they have even sold one of those candy bars, whoever was behind that probably also came up with the Pontiac Aztec.

So, when they are vacillating between cereals the clock is ticking, if I stay out of bed too long then I am never getting back to sleep.  That’s bad for both me and Shirley because I’m still going back to bed no matter how awake I am, but instead of sleeping I am groping until she relents.

The second issue is that our kids refuse to agree on anything, they are incapable of agreeing what color the sky is when it’s blue.  It’s green Tod, No it’s Green!.  Tod says it’s blue daddy!   So, they often end up fighting over what show to watch next and on top of that, Tod will typically come bitching about how Ted is sitting too close to him and that we need to make him move.

However, Tod now has the upper hand because he knows how to work the remote.   Similar to the brother who has a copy of the key to the liquor cabinet or knows where his dad’s porno stash is hidden.  (Pretty sad that the day’s of porno stashes are coming to an end) You should see how Tod takes command of that remote, he holds it like a 16 year old girl does her iphone, complete confidence in his ability to navigate the remote and admiration for the power that it holds and can unlock.  Looks like all I need to do is lower that cereal shelf and the weekend mornings will once again be mine.  Anyone know a good handyman?