I was just searching the InterWebbie Brand Information Network for.. well, I was ego-searching to be honest.. and I stumbled upon this site and thought, "WOW! Somebody’s set up a whole website with a bunch of funny stuff I’ve done! Cool, I can read a bunch of my old columns.. and watch some videos.. and.. WAIT A MINUTE! This hasn’t been updated in years! HEY, I’m responsible for that site. Oh, carp!" So, yeah.. sorry?

So much has happened since my last column. My cute little baby has grown into a cute little girl. She’s about six or seven months into what we have to assume is the "Terrible Two’s." She’s started getting all defiant.. testing boundaries.. going out at night, drinking and smoking with her friends. Unacceptable! Where does she learn this behavior? Not Daddy!

It’s really not that terrible.. Callia is a joy which further reinforces my Parents Are Full Of Carp And Always Have Been Theory.

Remember when your parents exaggerated everything they told you and you saw right thru it and thought they were full of it? Then, sometime in your twenties you realize that your parents had the best intentions.. and maybe YOU were the assjack. Having redeemed yourself and finally become an adult, you shake your head at how immature you were.. as you continue to eat all of their food and bring your laundry every time you visit.

Then your friends start having kids and you think, "They’ve lost their damn minds! Why? How nuts is that?! Not me!" But they tell you how great it is and you secretly think, "No, they’re full of it. I’ve seen what their day to day life is like and that sucks." If you take it at face value.. yeah, you’re right.

At some point, though.. the Pop Rocks and Coke mixtures you ingested decades ago finally gestates and you have kids of your own. (yes, that IS how it happens.. babies come from crappy, over-done pop culture references.) Then you realize that yes, wiping some kid’s butt and nose for him is an irritating chore.. but taking care of your own kid is.. well, it’s an irritating chore.. but you don’t mind doing it ’cause you love ‘em and it brings you joy to be able to do something to help them out. (Hopefully that’s the case. There are exceptions to the rule, of course, and those parents are now either in jail or on their way to H – E – double – "time-out".)

Being a parent means you are around other parents, like it or not. You soon realize that most of these parents are overly concerned with making sure everybody thinks their kids aren’t the dumbest, ugliest ones ever to live (especially when, clearly, they are). They do this by comparing their spawn to yours and by exaggerating everything their kid does.

Little Billy pounds on the keyboard mindlessly? Computer genius!

Pookie cocks an eyebrow at an odd time? Comic genius!

Katie eats something she found in the yard? What a resourceful young naturalist wilderness survival expert!

"We call him Monkey ’cause he climbs all over everything!" Really? You mean just like every other kid that has ever lived? How unique! "Monkey?!" That’s wild! How’d you think of that?

"I’m not going to be that way," I remember saying. "I’ll never lie to my kid, either.. I’ll tell her the truth about everything and she’ll appreciate it." Then Christmas comes and Santa arrives with his bag full of lies. Eventually, the Easter Bunny hops into town just to make sure you don’t go six months without confusing a religious event with the contrived commercialism that requires the same card-candy-gift and dinner reservation combo that every other "holiday tradition" consists of. Guess what? Now you’re a parent who’s full of crap, too. (No, next Easter we’re not getting chocolate eggs from a bunny.. it’s going to be Lincoln Logs in the sock drawer delivered by a goldfish, just to honor the memory of Bill Hicks.)

That was a long winded way of saying I think other parents have either exaggerated how "terrible" the Twos are.. or their kids were clearly inferior to mine in every single way, especially genetically, intellectually, cosmetically, socially.. oh, wait.. I’m full of crap, too (or carp.. whatever, same thing). Especially when I say I’m going to sit down and write more often.

Let me start off by saying: “First time parents.. you’re never ready to have your baby! There’s no such thing. Oh, you think you’re ready.. but then it happens and you freak the hell out.” See, I had to say that. I’ve found that having a child means you have to act like a damn know-it-all “been there, done that” prick. Having kids turns you into a blithering idiot. The sad thing is even if you realize that, you can’t stop it.

That’s the other thing first-timers have to look forward to.. every jackass who has ever had kids wants to yap your ear off with their crappy advice. Then they welcome you to the “club” and smile knowingly as they tell you about their shit-head kids and the wild parenting experiences they’ve had. As if having a baby changed the fact that you don’t give a crap about other people’s kids. Or is it just me? I don’t know. I’ve digressed.

We went in for a regularly scheduled checkup a couple weeks before the babys due date and were told, “Wow, you need to get over to the hospital now. We’re having this baby today!” My first reaction was “No, no, no. We can’t do it today.. if we do it two weeks from now, I can work from home for a couple extra weeks. We should do it then.” The doctor looked at me like this was unreasonable. Apparently babies are very defiant and can’t follow directions even from the very start.

So we go over to the hospital, check in and get ready for the action. I don’t want to get into the details of the birthing process (because the footage is available in the “soopa-secret hidden bonus material” section of my critically-acclaimed standup dvd).. but I think I can sum it all up by saying there’s both a time to be ive, and a time to shut the hell up and get out of the way. Walking that fine line is the tricky part. Here’s a tip: bring your own booze. The hospital doesn’t keep any in the fridge.

When you’re having a baby everybody asks what you’d prefer, a boy or a girl. It really didn’t matter to me as long as the child was healthy and black, yaknowatimsayin’? (See, ’cause my wife and I are both whiter than Vanilla Ice.. ha! ha! woo! White and Black jokes! Guess what else? I DANCE LIKE A DORK! ha! ha!)

First time parents are already scared out of their minds – add the chance of retardation, deformity and the baby coming out looking like your lady’s “close, but completely platonic friend” and the stress level is high enough to justify pulling out that six-foot bong you’ve had in storage since college. One thing to keep in mind is that all babies are really ugly when they’re born. Incredibly ugly. I’d been told this, but I wasn’t prepared for the first time I saw my baby. Her skin was blue, she was covered in a white film plus blood and goo.. and her head was shaped like a gourd. She looked like an unfortunately misshapen inbred Gremlin.

My heart sunk. “Oh God. Oh, no! She’s.. special. She’s going to be one of Jerry’s kids! Dammit!” My thoughts were erratic and crazed as I ran thru our options. Finally I came to my senses. “It’s ok. I love her no matter what. I won’t run screaming out of here right now, never to return. We’re NOT leaving her in a dumpster and fleeing the country. We’ll take care of her.” By this time, I just felt silly because she had started looking human. The point is.. don’t make rash decisions those first few minutes. Give it about 5 or 10 minutes before doing something you’ll regret. ‘Cause she’s turned out to be beautiful.

Unfortunately, she looks a lot like me. Not unfortunate for me.. but oh, that poor kid. Imagine me about five days old in a diaper. Except with yellow skin. She did have jaundice, but we loved our little Simpsons baby. I’d hold her and say, “doh!” and my wife would say “mmmmmmmmmm!” and some kid we didn’t even know would ride by on a bike and go “ha-ha!” Never has my shame been so cartoonish.

Once we took the baby home, it amazed me how attentive she was. She pays such close attention to everything we say and do.. it really puts the pressure on. You start running out of original things to say to a baby and end up repeating little things over and over. Eventually we were reduced to blabbering about how pretty she is.. how perfect she is. I started getting scared that it would all go to her head and we’d end up with a prissy sorority girl princess who thinks she’s better than everybody else. To prevent this, I’ve started balancing out these compliments by saying things like “you’re so intelligent! Such a great mathematician! How’s daddy’s little astronaut?”

Another thing I found myself saying was “Daddy will fix it.” Weather it was a bottle, diaper or some other baby catastrophe, I’d reassure my child by repeating the “Daddy will fix it” mantra. I’ve decided I need to stop doing that, too. I don’t want an 18-year old daughter to be running over pedestrians in her new BMW without giving it a second thought because she knows “Daddy will fix it.” It’s easy to stop saying it now, but when that phrase starts to mean “I’ll just put it on Daddy’s credit card” – then I’m screwed. Better nip it in the bud.

My wife is so over-protective of the baby.. it cracks me up. The other day the baby and I were down in the basement laying on the couch, just minding our own business watching porn.. not doing anything wrong.. and my wife comes running into the room like the baby’s on fire asking me “is she still breathing? check her.. is she still breathing?” Ridiculous. I’m not the best Daddy ever, but I’m not that bad.. but I am a smart ass. So I reply, “No, sweetie, she died four hours ago.. I’m just cuddling her corpse.”

Of course she was alive. We were the ones walking around like the living dead.. all sleep deprived, undernourished and unbathed like really lame zombies. Even Michael Jackson’s zombie buddies in Thriller were disfigured with tattered clothes.. cool gang members who just happened to use the art of dance to express their unholy rage. What about us? Do we get to bust thru walls and scare teens with our crotch-grabbing spins and twists? No, we had to stay up all night crying.. hoping we didn’t flip and throw the baby against the wall.

We did figure out how to get the baby to sleep thru the night. Many people will tell you to put baby cereal in their formula.. but that’s just a lie. The secret is: fill their little bottles or sippy-cups or whatever up with black coffee at 9 a.m. and at 9 p.m. slip ‘em some sleeping pills. That pretty much keeps her on schedule. And when that doesn’t work, violent beatings do! Ahh, restful slumber.

The other big lie people tell is that they never get a chance to go out after the birth. What a crock. You don’t even need a babysitter. If your child can’t walk or talk, you can just set her in a closet and go about your business. She can’t get out.. who’s she gonna tell?

She is developing and growing so fast, though. You’d be amazed at how quickly they learn. She does this little trick now where she ties a cherry stem into a knot with her tongue! So cute.

All jokes aside, baby farming is the most rewarding thing you could ever do. It’s absolutely amazing. Pound for pound, babies are worth more on the black market than most all other commodities. The tough part is fattening them up enough to sell. You can’t just pack up a newborn in styrofoam peanuts and ship ‘em UPS.. you’ve gotta make sure they have enough body fat to survive the trip. Otherwise, you’ll end up with bad feedback on ebay. That sticks with you your entire life!

Sometimes people ask, “when do you stop saying their ages in weeks?” The answer? Apparently at 3.5 Months. We’ll stop saying her age in months whenever the math gets too hard.

For as long as I can remember, my parents had been asking when I was going to get married. Whenever the family would get together the conversation would always turn to marriage and the production of grandkids. I’d always reply, “well, before we start worrying about grandkids maybe I should, I don’t know, meet a woman? Preferably one that’s not completely insane, slowly draining me of my very will to live..”

Well, I lucked out and to my parents delight I did get married to the most wonderful woman I’ve ever met. My parents kicked the grandkids chatter up into overdrive. It got to be so annoying that whenever they would get started I would turn to my wife and shrug saying, “You guys want grandkids? ok. We’ll go make some. See ya later!” I’d grab her hand and we’d go upstairs for a while. Then we’d take showers and come back down all rejuvenated and perky. They stopped asking for grandkids.

I had my doubts that I was even ready to take care of a child. It’s a lot of responsibility.. and I’m a guy who couldn’t keep up with his wallet until I chained it to my ass. Am I ready to be in charge of every aspect of somebody’s existence? Well, I did babysit Jesse Perry for ten grueling months.. maybe I can handle it after all.

So, we conceived a child. If you’re interested, the video of the event is up in the “members-only” area of this site.

The first big milestone of the pregnancy was the twentieth week ultrasound. We went in to the doctor’s office and the very first image we see of our child.. she was throwing up gang signs. Where did she get that from? Not me.. maybe the Mtv? Damn those punks with their ringy-blingy-bling and wacky piercings!

Then we’re trying to determine the sex of the child and the angle of the shot on the monitor is a view of my baby laying spread eagle. Very disturbing. It was an uncomfortable moment, and to break the tension in the air I said, “I hope that’s the last time Daddy sees THAT on video.” The tech did not laugh. Much like you people, she did not find that amusing.

What the tech did do was take her mouse and use the pointer to show me the outline of my daughter’s.. stuff. “Here’s your daughter’s vagina,” she says. She continues to go over the outline of the organ with her pointer.. as if we missed it the first few times. She just wouldn’t move on. Here’s a tip: anytime you hear talk about somebody’s daughter’s vagina, there’s an uncomfortable, increasingly angry father somewhere. I didn’t know this, but it turns out talking about vaginas is offensive! Who would have known? So don’t do it. Don’t talk about vaginas in a public setting.

Now that we knew she would be a girl, naming the child was easier. My wife had her picks, but my suggestions were: Marilyn, Aria, Gemini.. nice names. The wife was all, “we are NOT naming our daughter after your favorite porn stars!” Isn’t that rich? I could barely reply, “Ohhh, look who rode in on her Morality High Horse to pass judgment on all! I’m glad somebody was ready to step up and be better than everybody else. Where did this even come from? What happened to the girl I love? I don’t even know you anymore! Who are you?!”

When I finished crying, somebody explained to me that we needed a birth plan. It’s basically a rundown of how you want events to go once you’re in the hospital. I suggested that once the umbilical cord was cut and tied off, I could grab the baby and run out of the hospital like Michael Jackson did. Nobody liked that idea.

“What do you want to do with the placenta?” they asked. Apparently some people keep it in a jar or plant it in the yard or even eat it! Yes, eat it. Some weirdos make stew out of it, but we were leaning toward burgers or omelets, maybe even tacos. I don’t want to tell you how to live your life, but if you get a chance to get your hands on a good placenta.. indulge yourself a little. Mmmm, that’s spicy afterbirth!

With our birth plan in place, we had to get the house ready for babies. We started stockpiling as many guns as possible to place throughout the house.. ’cause kids don’t know how to share. You don’t want them fighting over the firearms, that could get dangerous. Make sure you have enough for everybody.

You also have to have a nursery theme. Instead of Disney or WB junk, I decided our theme would be Jack Daniels. That way, we have a place for our empties and we don’t have to buy overpriced plush toys or any crap like that. Once we set up our baby cage, the nursery was done and we were ready to have our baby.