How to Be a Dad

Banana Added for Scale (A New, More Forgiving Unit of Measure)

Posted by Andy on August 24th, 2012, under INSTRUCTIONAL DIAGRAMS

The banana is not a standard or scientific unit of measure.

It isn’t even accurate. But isn’t accuracy really for people who build bridges and count how many eyebrow hairs they have? Let’s face it, not everything in the world needs a laser scan that can tell you the shoe size of a molecule.

People like inaccuracy. We say it’s [some hour] o’clock when it’s anywhere within 29 minutes of that hour. When we say it’s about two and a half miles down that-a-ways, we really mean it’s over there and far enough away that we’ll probably be long gone by the time someone could return to complain about our inexactness.

Conversely, accuracy can even freak people out. Give someone an answer down to the thousandth and take note of how quickly it takes for them walk away from you. It’ll probably be about .0042 seconds.

Sometimes guestimates are the best course. For parents, sometimes that all that’s possible with our frazzled heads. About this much; a bunch; a bit; just one sec; a smidge here; a tad there. But there’s a better way now. The banana.

Break free of the snobby bonds of accuracy and precise units of measured length. Don’t be crushed in the iron fist of things like “standards” and “regulations.” Use the banana.
 

Banana Added for Scale, the Origin

Here’s the story behind the signature joke “Banana Added for Scale” that I add into some Instructional Diagrams. It’s an adventure (not really) back through the mists of time (2010), across vast untamed lands (Facebook), and at last here, on HowToBeADad.com…

August 30, 2010 I have a 60yo tiny antique safe I once got from my grandparents. I set the combo about 18 years ago, forgotten. It has two dials that split the alphabet between. 13 x 13 = 169 possible combinations. I can hear my forgotten stuff rattling around… So, I’ll see you all, at most, 169 combos later. (Banana added for scale)

Friends commented in on the banana joke as much as the puzzle of the safe. One close friend offered that if I ever got into it, I’d be disappointed because what I’d imagined was probably utterly magical. Like a dried up, petrified banana. Which turned out to be true. The disappointment, not the petrified banana.

The next day The safe hath been cracked!!! I U was the winner. The safe contained $5.35 in change and about a 20 year old Chuck E Cheese token.

Yeah. Rather anticlimactic. I was tempted to send my future self a message. To close up the safe and see what happens to a banana another twenty years out. But I just closed the thing up and forgot the combo in .0042 seconds.

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See All the “Banana Added for Scale” Instructional Diagrams
Practical applications of the Banana unit of measure.

Facebook is kinda bananas.
Different definition though.
 

Breastfeeding Debate Multiplication Chart

Posted by Andy on May 15th, 2012, under INSTRUCTIONAL DIAGRAMS

[ click the image to enlarge ]

Maybe the debate scores on this chart will help people to gauge how crazy the conversation at the group picnic is going to get when breastfeeding comes up. Maybe not. Maybe it’ll only be useful to news channels and magazine editors interested in maximizing the number of people who will boost visibility with the light of the torches they carry and the rattle of their pitchforks.

Whichever side of the many breastfeeding fences you’re on, we can all agree that there’s a lot of disagreement in the “discussion” out there. Provocative photos and headlines, cleverly timed right before the Mother holiday, can whip up a little bit of a civil war within the world of parenting. No duh. They were designed to.

It’s so easy to play on the strong opinions and feelings on the topic of breastfeeding and parenting styles. Multiply any of them together and the resulting fireworks display can leave green spots on your vision for weeks.

For a lot of parents, this can all start with the “to boob or not to boob” question and just get more complicated and passionate from there. But whether you didn’t or couldn’t, or you did so for a while or a much longer time, wherever you did it, however frequently, with or without a pump or bottles, or even upside-down, I say simply this to all moms by birthing, adoption, marriage, however…

–Andy

Insert insults and hate mail here.

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Picture Time!
If these are not worth a thousand words, at least they’re good for a few laughs.

Instructional Diagrams
This Instructional Diagram got all “hard-hitting,” but the rest are all plushy dolls.
 

Baby Teeth & Other Ferocious Fangs

Posted by Andy on April 16th, 2012, under INSTRUCTIONAL DIAGRAMS

[ click the image to enlarge ]

New baby teeth are such a fake out. As a parent, you suffer so much for those little things to come in, so when they do, you almost want to do backflips, build a bonfire and set off fireworks. Maybe we’re talking about me at this point, but in any case, it’s a huge achievement, a life experience never to be forgotten. But, remember, you could use these same words to describe surviving a shark attack…

Baby teeth are sharp! Babies are so amazing, however, you sit there chuckling like a moron juggling grenades, drunk on the cuteness. As a dad, you’ve got the little drooling one on your knee and you stick out a soon-to-be-unfortunate knuckle – BLAM!!! Aaaaarg! Or, as a breastfeeding mom, you sit there in the afternoon glow with the nestling angel, whip out a boob and – BLAM!!! Yeeeeeow!

Some have mentioned that tickling a baby is the best way to get them to release their razor-clamp, but please be warned, it can just as often result in a harder bite. Also, if someone told you that the best way to stop a Great White from gnawing you in half was to tickle its nose, would you really be capable of recalling that tip in the moment, let alone putting it into practice?

I’m not trying to instill fear in anyone, I’m just trying to say that snakes apparently do not appreciate you relieving yourself two feet away and that baby teeth are supercalifragilisticexpialidociously sharp. So, be cautious about where you drop trou’ in the woods, and give your nipples and knuckles the same consideration when a baby has just gotten some of its teeth.

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Facebook always seems like it’s teething…
No, seriously. Doesn’t it?

Verop torlap insortiata
That’s not Latin. Uhhhh, yeah. Our Instructional Diagrams make about as much sense as that.
 

Baby Fingernails & Other Deadly Edged Weapons

Posted by Andy on March 28th, 2012, under INSTRUCTIONAL DIAGRAMS

[ click the image to enlarge ]

Baby fingernails are so sharp they make razor blades seem like warm gummy bears in comparison. If you’ve got kids, you’ve probably experienced the sudden sizzling pain of your baby’s nails accidentally giving you inexpert plastic surgery. You’ve probably heard this phrase before, “Ooooo. What happened to your face?” Or, my fave, “What did you do to yourself?” It takes a great deal of effort for me not to answer with something about taking a power drill with the trigger duct taped on full-blast and trying to balance it on the tip of my nose.

Okay. Maybe this Instructional Diagram has something to do with the fact that my toddler son went all Wolverine on my nose and lip a couple of days ago, and I’ve had to endure a sting every time I smile (which is a lot) and every time I talk (which is even more). Baby nails are sharp (fingers AND toes), and trimming the little edged weapons is easier said than done.

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Can you get a paper cut on Facebook?
No. The was just a dumb, humorous question to get you to Like us on Facebook.

FUNstructional Diagrams!
Yeah. That was dumb, too. Sorry.