Sean Platt’s blog, Writer Dad is one year old today! Stop by and wish him well.

I will update with a proper post late tonight or Saturday.

Dear Unnamed Cookie Company,

Thank you for the “free sample” of the “World’s Best Chocolate Chip Cookie” which arrived in my mailbox today.

Ever since I placed the order last week, I have been salivating as I imagined what The World’s Greatest Chocolate Chip Cookie would taste like. As you might discern from my belly, I’m no stranger to cookies. You might even say I’m a cookie lover, if not a cookie monster, as no cookie is safe in my house longer than 24 hours.

I told family, friends and even random strangers that I would soon have in my hands not just any cookie, but The World’s Best Chocolate Chip Cookie. You can imagine the excitement that built in my community as each day. Neighbors gathered around my mailbox waiting for the arrival of my free sample.

Sure, the sample wasn’t really free. I had to pay $2.50 for shipping and handling. But that is a small pittance to pay for The World’s Best Chocolate Chip Cookie.

Since the website from which I ordered the cookie didn’t tell me how many come in a free sample, I found myself worrying that I might get too many cookies. I’d hate to over indulge on The World’s Best Chocolate Chip Cookies and have all other cookies ruined forever after.

Today, the excitement built to a crescendo as my wife slowly opened the mailbox. Inside, was the moment we’ve all been waiting for. As she lifted the white bubble wrap package skyward, the crowd erupted into wild cheers!

After the obligatory interviews with local media outlets, I shooed the crowd away and then gathered my family around the table, ready to share in the bountiful goodness.

I opened the package and was greeted with one cookie, wrapped tightly in plastic wrap, rubber band and a nice white ribbon. These people spared no expense!

And the cookie was HUGE, a full 3 inches in diameter!

I wasn’t sure how I would cut such a massive cookie into pieces for my family to enjoy, not without a jackhammer or some other heavy construction equipment which I am not licensed to operate, anyway. Fortunately, when I picked the cookie up, it fell apart into easier-to-eat pieces.

My wife, my son and I each enjoyed a one inch fragment of The World’s Best Chocolate Chip Cookie. Fortunately, we were unable to form an opinion based on one bite each. This is good because it means I wasn’t tempted to order more cookies.

So, thank you, Unnamed Cookie Company, for not over-delivering on your free sample and avoiding what could have been a long, expensive and fattening relationship.

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Have you noticed an explosion in the number of life coaches recently?  You can’t throw a rock without hitting one on the web these days – and it’s a fun sport I would highly recommend.

Of course, I am kidding. I would never advocate throwing rocks at life coaches. Because then you’d have to “talk about” the issues which drove you to throw a rock and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Before I offend a good portion of my readers, let me say, I’m not talking about all life coaches. There are some who know what they’re doing and have integrity, especially the ones who read Blogger Dad… Or did read Blogger Dad. And they’re a lot more reputable than those SEO Social Media Ninja Guru jerks!

At any rate, I’ve been thinking… what the world really needs aren’t more life coaches, but rather Life Referees!

We need someone with a whistle and some muscle to enforce some of the unwritten rules that we rely on to prevent society from drifting into chaos like a scene out of  some apocalyptic movie (and here I am thinking, Earnest Saves Christmas). There are lots of stupid people out there doing lots of stupid things and someone needs to put a stop to it so the rest of us can live normal lives.

I’m not sure how we can monetize Life Refs, but hey, there’s a market for everything, right? And come on, the job would be fun! Heck, I’d probably do it for free just to release the stress so many people cause me.

Here are some of the crackdowns I’d like to see, along with the penalties the guilty would have to serve.

• People who stop suddenly in front of you. Are people cognizant of anybody but themselves anymore? No matter where I go, there always seems to be someone blocking my path. I drive down my street and there is some guy parked sideways, blocking the entire road, while he looks at a map. Pull over idiot! Let the people who know what they’re doing go by. Worse than that are these jerks in the grocery store who wait until the exact moment that they are pushing their cart through the exit to come to a dead stop and start analyzing their receipt for any errors the cashier may have made. Penalty: These people will be forced to shop for two months in a busy store where all the other patrons are super obese people riding those carts which take up most of the aisle.
  
• People who act like the latest fad they stumbled across is the one true path to enlightenment, internet success or whatever the hell else they’re trying to sell you or convince themselves that they’re not in fact flushing their money down the toilet. It wouldn’t be so bad if they didn’t press you with the hard sale and fabricated success stories. Penalty for these people: 20 hours of sitting through a pyramid scheme sales presentation.
• People who sit near too close to you in the movie theater. On the rare occasions that I go to the movies, I try to go at a time when nobody else will be there. So why is it that in a roomful of empty seats, some jerk has to sit directly in front of or behind me? I wouldn’t mind if people would actually watch the movie rather than talk on their cell phones, talk to their friends or pull out eat a four course dinner consisting of the noisiest possible foods known to man. Penalty: These people will be forced to sit in a packed theater full of children during back to back to back screenings of straight-to-DVD children’s movies.
• Cars that drive side-by-side, 15 miles per hour under the speed limit and blocking both lanes of traffic. I’d like to see a law passed which would institute the death penalty for these people. Is that too much to ask?
• Newscasters who tease you with some tidbit like, “Up next, find out what common food, likely sitting in your cupboard, will cause your limbs to fall off” and then make you wait 57 minutes to find out what it is! If there is a real urgent alert that people ought to know about, LEAD WITH THAT FREAKING STORY, not all the fluff and filler you fill the hour with. Who cares what some idiots think about American Idol coming to town? Penalty: Will be forced to watch their own fluff for 24 hours.
• Cable networks that misuse the emergency broadcast signal. You’re familiar with the emergency broadcasting system, right? It’s that obnoxious beeping and buzzing which kills the audio of the show you are watching followed by a recorded announcement that says, “this is a weekly required test of the emergency broadcasting system, had this been a real emergency…blah, blah, blah.” The only problem is that my local cable company does this test EVERY SINGLE DAY and almost at the same time. It wouldn’t be a problem if it didn’t seem to occur at the end of whatever show I have on.

“And the murderer is…”

BEEEP BOOOOP BEEEEP BOOOP ”

“Coming up on next on Action News 6, this popular food, if eaten while watching TV, will cause your eyes to fall out. The name of this product is…”

BEEP BOOOP BEEEEP BOOOOP.

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(Note – this is the first in a series of Blogger Dad Reviews. I have not received any compensation for this review, though it sure would be nice if someone did pay me. This review is based on my experiences with stuff we buy. And while most online reviews are pretty vanilla, I try and spice mine up with some humor so even if you don’t like the product, you’ll enjoy reading the review.)

If you have a child, you don’t need to be told how much stuff you have to buy. I’ll bet it’s a lot more stuff than you thought you’d have to buy.  One of the biggest expenses for us is poop removal. Or as you might call it, diapers and wipes.

We spend roughly $12 million a year on poop-related products. Or at least it seems that way.

So when we found Walmart’s Parent’s Choice Baby Diapers and Wipes, we were thrilled. Both products are several dollars cheaper than the name brands (when you buy in bulk) and my wife has been buying them for nearly two years now. While we love the diapers, which are equal to the name brands at almost half the price, the wipes are another story.

It’s not that the wipes are awful, they are strong and sturdy and damp enough to clean up the toughest of stains. However, and here’s my biggest gripe with the wipes, they are not threaded.

Nearly every other wipe we buy comes threaded together, folded in such a way that when you pull one wipe through the top of a container, the next one is sticking out and ready to go. Pretty simple concept, right?

When you’re wrist deep in poopy diapers and you have an infant or toddler that would rather squirm around than let you clean them up, you NEED quick access to as many wipes as you can get. With me, it’s roughly 20 sheets per wipe… What? I don’t want to get poo on my hands.

With Parent’s Choice wipes, you need to manually open the box top, dig inside, then spend precious moments slowly peeling one wipe from another by which time, you can have a real disaster on your hands. We’re talking FEMA teams in Hazmat suits, folks. The only way they could have made it more difficult to get wipes out would be if you had to solve some puzzle to get access to each individual wipe.

So, please for the love of all that is Holy, Parent’s Choice, MAKE YOUR WIPES MORE EASILY ACCESSIBLE!! Your product is so close to perfect but fails in the most important category for most parents – convenience.

Normally when doing a review, I would provide a link to where you can get more information about the product online.

Oddly enough, when I searched for Parent’s Choice wipes on the web, I couldn’t find a site devoted to the products. They have a formula site, but nothing for diapers or wipes. If you click on Walmart’s site and do a search for baby wipes, Parent’s Choice doesn’t even come up. So finding Parent’s Choice on the web is as difficult as using their product.

A better wipe

If you are looking for a good wipe which is also threaded, I would suggest Target’s generic brand (whatever they’re calling it these days – don’t even get me started on Target, they can’t even master the fine art of ringing up customer orders in a timely manner). Target’s wipes are not as strong a wipe as Parent’s Choice, and they costs a bit more, but they get the job done and more importantly…

they dispense conveniently.

If you have a baby wipe horror story or want to suggest some good alternatives for readers, or simply want to tell me how awesome/lame this review was, feel free to leave a comment.

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If you’re reading this in a feed, you may want to stop by and check out the changes at Blogger Dad.

Out with the green theme and in with the blue. A lot of people liked the green, so the decision was not easy. While the green looked serene and clean, it just didn’t feel right. I was going to do a blue, yellow and white layout, using colors from one of my two year old son, E’s, favorite shirts. The design was radically different, too. However, it, along with the yellow, met a mixed reaction from my trusted test audience, though. So rather than rush out a design which I wasn’t completely happy with, I decided to continue the design I was using, but make it better with a new color scheme and some other style tweaks.

The most noticeable change is I the header, where I replaced the cartoon header I had drawn before to one of my favorite pictures of E, from his first birthday party.

Here are some of the other changes, presented in the easy to read bullet list format.

• New sidebar, including options to subscribe to the RSS feed or via email, to get each new post delivered to your inbox
• Updated About page to include some new info and a photo of me (though you may want to wait until after breakfast to look)
• New Illustrations and Design page to showcase some of my work for those who would like to hire me for caricatures, comics, design, illustrations, custom art for loved ones, content, or to help you move a body at 4 in the morning
• Buttons to Collective Inkwell, my online studio with Sean Platt and a button for Potty Training Power for those in need of potty training help. Sean wrote the book with his wife, Cindy Platt, and I did the art.
• New Funniest and Most Heartfelt posts in the sidebar
• Changed the Contact page and ditched the contact form and put my address for those who wish to email me
• Did I mention the blue?
• A new Twitter button with a bird I drew
• Dropdown boxes for Archives and Categories to save space

As I mentioned on Friday, this week will also mark a return to 5 Days a Week posting.

The new schedule

Mondays and Wednesdays will continue with the typical mix of humor and heart that I’ve developed here. Rants, drawings, posts about my son and details of my life will be on these days. In other words, the posts which take a long time to create.

Tuesdays I’m adding a review page. I was going to call it Cool or Crap but I am re-thinking that name. As far as selling out, don’t worry, I’m not going all Sponsored-By-Tucks Medicated Pads on you. Speaking of which, what ARE Tucks medicate pads? I’m tempted to do a Google search but I think I’d prefer not to know. At any rate, my reviews will be stuff we actually use around the house, toys my son plays with (and I trip on in the middle of the night) and whatever else I think might be fun to review. No, I’m not going to be reviewing pork brains or beef cheeks like my friend Tracy. On the rare occasion that someone does send me something to review, and I’m talking to you Sony (PlayStation 3), then I will disclose in the review that someone sent me the stuff.

Thursdays are up in the air. I’m still trying to decide what I’ll do with them. Feel free to make suggestions.I’m leaning towards pictures of my son or maybe Angry Letter of the Week to whatever person, place or thing is ticking me off that week. Kinda like my Letter to Target.

Fridays will be called The Best. Here, I will post links to some of the best stuff I found on the web during the week. I’ll also post some of the best comments from the week that you all leave. I think some of the best stuff on this site comes in the form of reader comments. I don’t know how many people actually go back and read comments a day or so after the posts, so it’s easy for some real gems to get lost, so I want to bring them to the front page (along with links to the readers’ blogs). I’ll also post some other funny stuff on Fridays to keep it quick, light and fun.

So feel free to comment below. Tell me what you think of the new look and features.

As always, thanks for reading,

David

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On Monday I’m going to re-energize Blogger Dad.

I’ve been writing this blog for nearly a year and have learned a lot in that time. Like how to drink nine Diet Wild Cherry Pepsis in one sitting. I plan to use the lessons learned to better this site for you. Here are some of the proposed changes. Feel free to comment or make suggestions of things you’d like to see in the comments below or by emailing me.

The biggest change is that I will be going back to five days a week. I do this with some trepidation as it seems the longer a post sits in the top spot, the more people get a chance to read it and comment. Not everybody visits every blog they follow every day. Heck, I barely make rounds to the blogs I like once a week! The extra posts will be shorter in nature, though, with a focus on the funny. Consider it bonus material. If you stop by and read, awesome.

The proposed schedule

Mondays and Wednesdays will continue with the typical mix of humor and heart that I’ve developed here. Rants, drawings, posts about my son and details of my life will be on these days. In other words, the posts which take a long time to create.

Tuesdays I’m adding a review page called Cool or Crap? Don’t worry, I’m not going all Sponsored-By-Tucks Medicated Pads on you. Speaking of which, what ARE Tucks medicate pads? I’m tempted to do a Google search but I think I’d prefer not to know. At any rate,  my reviews will be stuff we actually use around the house, toys my son plays with (and I trip on in the middle of the night) and whatever else I think might be fun to review. No, I’m not going to be reviewing pork brains or beef cheeks like my friend Tracy. On the rare occasion that someone does send me something to review, and I’m talking to you Sony (PlayStation 3), then I will disclose in the review that someone sent me the stuff.

Thursdays are up in the air. I’m still trying to decide what I’ll do with them. Feel free to make suggestions.I’m leaning towards pictures of my son or maybe Angry Letter of the Week to whatever person, place or thing is ticking me off that week. Kinda like my Letter to Target.

Fridays will be called The Best. Here, I will post links to some of the best stuff I found on the web during the week. I’ll also post some of the best comments from the week that you all leave. I think some of the best stuff on this site comes in the form of reader comments. I don’t know how many people actually go back and read comments a day or so after the posts, so it’s easy for some real gems to get lost, so I want to bring them to the front page (along with links to the readers’ blogs). I’ll also post some other funny stuff on Fridays to keep it quick, light and fun.

So feel free to comment below. Tell me what you like, don’t like, etc… about the site and I’ll consider it as I make these changes.

As always, thanks for reading,

David

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So last week I published that list of dumb things I do (I was a bit late in doing so, but I finally responded to your comments this morning). Well, as you may recall, I mentioned that I would create a list of annoying things my wife does. There are only two things on the list, which I will detail shortly. However, in anticipation of MY list, my wife made a list of things that I do which annoy her.

A dozen items!

And I swear she typed it up in five minutes flat. In fact, I suspect she simply cut and pasted it from an existing file.

First my list.

Annoying things my wife does

1) Hand towels. My wife is obsessed with hanging hand towels from every drawer, hook and handle in the kitchen. What is it with women and hand towels? My wife is not the first woman I’ve known who seems to have more hand towels than pairs of socks. It’s not that I don’t like hand towels, it’s just that every time I open a drawer or lean against something, the damned things fall on the floor. And since the floor apparently is loaded with the most dangerous bacteria this side of a public restroom – judging from my wife’s reaction when I drop a towel – I am constantly having to throw the things in the hamper without ever having used them.

2) Giving away cake. For some reason, my wife insists on giving away cake whenever people come to our house. “Here, take some cake with you!”  And I want to ask, “what are you doing? I plan to eat that in the middle of the night!” but of course I don’t say that because it’s just not polite. Plus, I don’t want people to know I eat cake in the middle of the night. Fortunately nobody reads this blog, so my secret is safe.

I was making a shopping list last night and I was going to pick up something sweet to eat. My wife told me not to get a snack because she has some cake mix she can use. It’s a dump cake, not nearly as unappealing as its name might suggest. At any rate, we ate some for snack and then my wife started cutting up the rest and putting pieces in a plastic box.

I asked, “What are you doing?”

Okay, what I really said was:

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! WHO ARE YOU GIVING OUR CAKE TOO?!”

She told me she was going to give it to somebody who works somewhere or something. Not even somebody in the family or a neighbor.

Lesson to all my female readers: do not give away a guy’s cake. If you must give cake to other people, buy another cake, one that preferably we know nothing about.

Now, my wife’s list with rebuttals by me.

Things Blogger Dad does that drive me crazy but I still love him

1. Leaves water all over the sink when he washes dishes and brushes his teeth. My response: Hey, at least I wash dishes. And brush my teeth. I’m sure there are some guys who do neither.
2. Leaves empty soda cans three inches from the trash can instead of throwing them away. Okay, this is impossible because there is nothing within a three inch radius of the trash can on which to place a soda can. 12 inches, maybe.
3. Leaves the salt and pepper in different places each time he uses them. Hey, they say to keep the mystery alive in a relationship, right?
4. Lets the litter box get beyond nasty before changing it.  Okay, this one requires a bit of detail. When my wife got pregnant with E, she was all too happy to inform me that she could not change the cat litter because there is something in cat poop which can endanger the baby. I’m pretty sure this is a myth created by women’s magazines, but whatever, so I agreed… E is now two years old! …Yet the job still remains mine for some reason.
5. Saves things that are broken. No fair in listing things I already listed on my list.
6. Makes bodily noises without excusing himself or in some cases, warning me.  Hey, when I was a kid, my uncle would purposely trap you in a confined space after farting. Imagine HIS girlfriend!
   
7. Points and waves finger at me during a heated discussion.  I don’t point, I use my fingers to illustrate.
8. Only opens the pack of toilet paper enough to get one roll out. What am I supposed to do? Take ever roll out and stack them in a pyramid like a stock boy in the grocery store?
9. Only opens a pack of soda enough to remove one can of soda.
10. Parks crooked in parking spots. I’m not crooked, I just choose to park creatively.
11. Waits until trash day to bring bags and boxes out even though they stack up in the kitchen. I offered to alleviate this issue by buying an industrial sized 55 gallon trash can for the kitchen, but noooo, my wife wants to stick with the dainty 13 gallon can because the other can is too big. And here’s something else, you can fit a lot more in a trash can when you collapse boxes rather than throwing them away whole.
12. Avoids manual labor like the plague. Hey, that is a lie. I mowed the lawn. Once.

Now, to be fair, my wife did close with the following.

But I love that you…

1. Play with our son
2. Take care of me when I’m sick
3. Surprise me with chocolate candies
4. Cooks meals
5. Does dishes
6. Changes diapers

So, there, I’m not all bad. Right?

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Sometimes I feel like Larry David spies on me.

For those unfamiliar with David, he is the co-creator of Seinfeld and the creator and star of HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm. The humor is painfully funny as it exploits his neuroses and social awkwardness.

The reason both of these shows work so well is that they tap into the stupid things we all do. The more socially awkward the moment, the more painful and funnier it is to watch.

Some of us do dumb things more than others. Some of us, and by us, I mean me, seem to do them on a daily basis.

A few months ago, I thought to compile a list of unexplainable dumb things I do, things that cause me to hang my head in shame or my wife to shake her head. Unfortunately, I lost the list. I can only imagine my mother-in-law came across it while at our house one day and looked at it wondering, “what kind of idiot did my daughter marry?”

Here are the dumb things I recall. More will likely follow in coming weeks or months, or perhaps even years. Maybe I’ll ask my wife and we can release a 24-part series.

Small talk

For some reason, I seem incapable of small talk with strangers.

Ever since my son was born, people come up to us regularly when we are out and say “cute baby” or inquire about his age. Sometimes these people have kids of their own with them, so I will inquire about their kid’s age in reciprocation, but I never think to follow-up to their response.

Example:
Woman: “Aw, cute kid, how old?”
Me: “Two. How old is yours?”
Woman: “27 months” (women never say a toddler’s age in years for some reason)
Me: “Oh.”
Then we each look at each other awkwardly before I say “have a nice day!” (Quickly walk away)

At the movie theater, when the ticket seller tells me to enjoy the movie, my mind has already convinced me that they wished me a good day.

Ticket seller: “Enjoy the movie.”
Me: “You too.” (Cringe, then quickly walk away)

I’m not much better at the grocery store.
Cashier: “Thank you for shopping with us. Have a good evening.”
Me: “Have a good DayNightmrffffffffummmm.”

Yes, my language actually devolves into a mumble as I realize I am not using actual words.

Whenever I wear my Florida Gators shirt, people invariably pass by and say the “Go Gators” thing to me, to which I am SUPPOSED to respond “Go Gators.”

Instead, I invariably laugh (no idea why) or I say “thank you.” Thank you as if I was a member of the championship basketball or football team!

I am thinking of printing a card which I can hand to people which reads: “I’m really not this stupid.”

Dumb things around the house

This is the arena in which I drive my wife nuts.

When I take food out of the fridge which has gone bad, I PUT IT BACK!  As if giving it another day or so may revive it! The better or more complete the leftover meal, the more likely I am to hang on to it for weeks. What am I thinking?

It’s not just food, though, I also keep broken items.

My garage is full of things which any sane person would throw out.  For instance, we have a half completed bookcase which was missing a part but I failed to contact the manufacturer to have them send it.

I keep pens that have long ago run dry.

I sometimes put burnt out light bulks in the box with new ones. I don’t know why, other than it seems like a handy place to put the bulb. I mean, it fits so perfectly in the space.

The more expensive the item, the harder it is to throw out. Recently, my wife dropped her camera at the beach. I can’t get over the fact that it was expensive (just expensive enough to ding the wallet but not expensive enough that it would be cheaper to repair) so I CANNOT justify throwing it in the trash. I just know if I DO throw it out, I’ll meet someone next week who can fix waterlogged cameras with nothing more than a napkin and two spare minutes.

I’ll update again Friday with more dumb things I do and the one thing my wife does which drives me absolutely bonkers!

What painfully dumb things do you do? Leave a comment below, share in the pain, make others feel less dumb.

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I’m kinda’ disappointed.

I expected my sister-in-law’s visit with her four girls, aged two to nine, to produce some humorous stories in which I lost my cool or mind or perhaps a little bit of both. While there were a few moments of insanity which made me question why anyone would choose to have four or more kids, for the most part, the visit went smoothly. In fact, I kinda’ miss having them around because I really enjoyed seeing E interact with other children. Well, when they weren’t fighting over toys, anyway.

One of the good things to come from the visit was a new routine E and I have, coloring.

While we have colored before, and I often draw for him, the routine was sporadic at best. Mostly because he grew bored quickly.

However, while the girls were here, they colored at the table on a daily basis and E thrived on the interaction. So much so that he is now asking Blogger Mom and I to color several times a day. Being a cartoonist, this is all kinds of awesome for me. For one, I get to impress my son with a talent I have. For two, it’s nice to see him get lost in the act of coloring.

I probably got into drawing in order to connect with my mother.

When I was a child, my mom used to draw in a tablet all the time. She was really good, too. I remember her drawing animals, cartoon characters and pictures from greeting cards we received. She usually colored them in with colored pencils, something I was never really good at doing. I remember looking through her book on almost daily basis, wishing I could draw the things she drew. I tried, I mimicked several of her drawings. Then I progressed to tracing images from a Spider Man coloring book until I was able to train my muscle memory to draw Spider Man, or at least a seven year old’s version, on my own.

So it is interesting that my son is taking to drawing at the age of two.

Saturday, he grabbed my hand and said, “color, daddy?” and led me to the kitchen table where we sat next to one another with a box of well worn crayons and a stack of paper.

He asked me to draw different things, including a penguin or a “pen-pen” as he calls them. I quickly drew a crude crayon penguin. You have to be fast with E, because he is chomping at the bit to get his hands on the picture. Once I was done, he asked, “I color penguin?”

So I handed him the penguin, he scribbled circles all over my drawing, then handed it back to me.

“I colored pen-pen,” he said.

And my heart melted.

My drawings are not art until E has taken a crayon to them.

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As I mentioned before, my two year old son, E, became obsessed with My Little Pony after his cousins brought their stable to our house. To my surprise, E spent a considerable amount of time brushing a pony’s hair. While I admit my first instinct was shock, I was actually rather touched to see how much care he was putting into the act. After some thought, I decided to go ahead and buy him a pony of his own. Surely, there are some brown or beige ponies, right? Unfortunately, the local stores only had a few options, none of them even remotely masculine. And while I consider myself a fairly progressive dad not tied down to the typical male/female stereotypes and trappings, it was a bit difficult to pony up the cash (pun intended) for a pink My Little Pony with an even pinker flower on its bottom.

I found myself wondering, why doesn’t Hasbro have a boy’s line of My Little Ponies? I wound up driving about 45 miles to find a My Little Pony that was a bit more gender neutral and had a comb rather than a tennis racket, blowdryer or purse. At Toys-R-Us, I found a blue and purple My Little Pony which I gave to him and he seems to enjoy.

My son is not alone

While I was surprised that my son likes My Little Ponies, I was even more surprised that so many readers commented and tweeted that they too, or their sons, enjoyed My Little Pony! So as a service to my readers and to all the boys secretly yearning, but ashamed, to play with their sisters’ My Little Ponies, I offer up some more masculine options for the fine folks at Hasbro to consider.

My Little Pony Soldier

Nothing says boy like guns and a skull tattoo, right? This ultra violent pony comes with his own accessories, including an assault rifle, ammunition, knife and grease paint for when the pony wants to go Full On Rambo!

My Little Pony NASCAR Edition

While some NASCAR traditionalists might question my choice of Jeff Gordon as the masculine symbol and they might even make a “rainbow warrior” joke or two, they are typically the very knuckle dragging homophobes that make boys feel they should hide their desire to play with My Little Pony in the first place. I say, fly your Pony flag high and proudly! And what better way than one of NASCAR’s best, Jeff Gordon My Little Pony, complete with sponsor stickers!

My Little Pony Construction Worker

Boys like tools, right? Move over, Bob the Builder, because this steel toed boot, construction belt wearing, tool toting handypony will delight the young and young at heart. Got an idea for a masculine pony I missed? Leave a suggestion in the comments and I might just draw the best one or two next week. Enjoy this post? Please consider Tweeting it and tell others.

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Content is copyright 2009 BloggerDad.com. If you are reading this on any site other than www.Bloggerdad.com or your personal RSS reader, then you may be reading it on a site which steals content. And a site like that is probably up to all kinds of no good.