Chapter 1: Meet the Grumps
So, you are seeking some professional advice about parenting are ya? In search of a wisened sage who may bestow upon you the secret to being the perfect parent and earn your little one’s admiration and respect. Well, you just so happened to stumble upon….er…well, none of those things, I’m a complete noob. But hey! I manage to make it to end of the day with my kiddos in one piece and my sanity still teetering on the side of “mostly sociably acceptable,” so that accounts for something, right? Well I may not be the super parenting guru, I have picked up some tricks on the way the likes of which I am willing to bestow upon ye mortals.
So this will be the first chapter in “The Grumpy Nerd Dad’s Survival Guide.” Let me just…like…doodle something up here…hang on…gotta like… get my arms in the air…aaaaaaaaand boom!
Nailed it.
Look at me, jumping for joy n’stuff…so…so excited that y’all could be here.
So before I delve into my pro-tips into being the best grump of a parent you can be, let me first introduce the people who set the stage for my real life comedy. I know, it’s a bit weird to have the first chapter of my survival guide not have to do with survival at all, but I think it’s important to establish some faces and names here! (No joke, my phone autocorrected the word “faces” to “feces” and I gotta admit that I’m not mature enough for that to not be funny). If you get to know my family, then it’ll be easier for y’all to join the Grumpy Nerd Legion (patent pending). Plus it’ll give me an excuse to gush about how freaking adorable my loved ones are. So buckle up buttercups, it’s gushing time!
A’ight, I have to start off with the reason why I’m here in the first place. Without the love of my life, I would just be a Grumpy Nerd. No dad, no nothing (except for the fore mentioned Grumpy Nerd thing, but whatever you get my point). Ok, let me just get my handy pencil and…gotta give her eyelashes I suppose…those don’t…uh…those don’t look anything like hands…gotta try again…still not right…nope…NOPE…WHY DO I SUCK AT DRAWING HANDS…ok screw it her hands are behind her back now…ok there!
My fellow grumps, meet Queen Bee, the Sexy Genius Unicorn aka my wife! Now for time and ease for everyone involved here’s sake, we will refer to my beloved moon and stars as simply “Q.” Now Q is by far the smartest and funniest person I ever met (not biased) and my best friend for life. She works as an engineer over with some like…other smart people or something. Ok look, I can’t really tell you what she does for a living not because I don’t care enough to figure it out but because I am honestly too dumb to understand it. I have asked her plenty of times what she does at her job, and despite her best efforts to level it down for me it basically just results in me going “…ah…I believe I understood some of the words you just spoke.” So to my primitive mind, the best way I can sum her job up is: she talks to computers. I know she’s probably reading this with her soft and beautiful hand outstretched with the palm firmly placed on her face, but that’s the best way for me to put it. She is not only working full-time, but she also goes to the gym every day, is in school for her masters, and still comes home to be a mommy and wife with whatever energy she has left. Like…dude…I don’t know how she does it. It’s almost inhuman! I’m like dead at the end of my day of parenting and she manages to juggle it all on a daily basis. She is amazing and honestly I’m glad she hasn’t realized that she’s waaaaaaaay out of my league.
Ok, let’s move on here to the next member of the prestigious Grump Clan. K, gotta get some fresh paper here…that hair looks terrible…gotta like, shade it in or something…hm made the face kinda look like a potato…now I want a potato…man I’m hungry…ok there, done!
Meet Princess Sparkles the Unicorn, or “P” for short. Our beautiful three year old daughter is a chip off of the old block…by that I mean she’s smart like her mother…except she uses her powers for evil. Her hobbies include balancing on one leg, baking cookies, having tea parties with her stuffed animals, and being an emotional terrorist. No, but seriously! I love my little girl to the moon and back, but she knows how to get what she wants and isn’t afraid to pull out the cheap shots to get it! Here’s an example that just happened last night.
Me: Ok sweetie, it’s time for you to go to bed.
P: But I’m not really feeling tired daddy! Will you please read me a story first?
Me: I just did darling! No more stalling, it’s time for bed!
P: Awwwwwww but daddy I really love you and I don’t want you to leave me ever again.
Me: *starting to choke up* Now now P, daddy told you it’s time for-
P: Daddy, are you my buddy?
Me: …YES! ANYTHING FOR YOU PRINCESS! *proceeds to read all the stories*
What did I tell you, an evil genius! My wife likes to give me a hard time saying that I’m just as stubborn as P, but the truth is she just knows when to strike! When Daddy has his shields up, best to wait and conserve energy. However, as soon as Daddy is vulnerable, show no mercy. She’s got the entire family wrapped around her finger…but that’s okay because she’s as sweet as a unicorn barfing up cotton candy while she does it.
Ok now let’s meet the last member of the Grumps. Man I’ve been doing a lot of doodling today…gotta work on those sausage fingers…no no no better start over…ugh, he’s only a baby, how hard can this be?!…I need a better eraser…and to be a better drawer…ok there, done!
Meet Rex, or, “R.” Why just Rex instead of a long comical name? Because that sums him up perfectly! He’s a tyrannical tyrannosaurus with an appetite for all things in his path! He yearns for the destruction of order and revels in chaos. In fact…hold on…gotta like…make this drawing a bit…more…accurate…aaaand there we go!
There’s our little one year old boy! It’s almost uncanny! Nah, but seriously, R is one of the happiest little dudes you could ever meet. He’s all smiles and giggles and loves to give kisses. He’s a perfect 10 on a happiness scale. But, just like his old dad, whenever hunger or sleepiness creeps its ugly head in, it gets dialed down to a -3 REAL quick! I’m talking red face, tears, foaming at the mouth, the local villagers making sacrifices to appease his wrath and everything! His favorite hobbies include trying to take all of his sister’s toys away, asking for food, knocking over any block tower that anybody has attempted to stack up, and taking long cozy naps. He and his sister get along for the most part and he just loves to follow her around. Our sweet tyrannosaurus baby is definitely hard to ignore, so it’s a good thing that he’s so freaking cute.
Well there ya have it. You now have had a chance to know me and all the people that I hold dear in my life. It’s never a dull moment and honestly the things that I’ve seen with these crazy people are so entertaining that I was just like “hm, I should share these stories on the web for complete strangers to laugh at,” and here we are! Now that we know each other on a personal level ( 😘), we can finally carry on with my life lessons. In chapter 2, I will be relaying my first and crucial tip in stay at home parenting. It’s totally a must have if you are even thinking about mastering this art (or if you plan to just make it up as you go like me). So, until next time my peeps: stay classy, stay safe, and, above all else,
Stay grumpy.
The Grumpy Nerd Dad 