Natural Predators: The Cycle of Life

It is said that there is perfect balance in nature. For every animal on the planet there is one below it in the food chain and yet another one higher. For every seal there is an orca, for every rabbit there is a fox, and for every English backpacker there is a... well... perhaps I'd best leave that one alone...

Thus we are led to the next logical question, what is the natural predator of the stay-at-home Dad? Is it a child with chickenpox? Is it a missing television remote that his child habitually steals and puts in odd places such as gum boots or kitchen garbage bins? Is it even his wife's credit card bill? (I'm going to pay for that one later...) The answer to these questions, as terrifying as they are, is no.

The true natural predator of the stay-at-home Dad is Rob from Better Homes & Gardens.

Living in a home built in the mid-1980's means that seemingly every day we are cataloguing and prioritising projects that need to be completed in order to keep the house from crumbling into the earth from whence it came. It was during one of these sessions that this Suburban Aussie Dad happened to be watching an episode of Better Homes & Gardens on the television and enjoying one of three cold beverages (because, and I'll let you in on a secret here: nothing is worse than being hung over when it's your turn to get up early with your child!) and on comes Rob with a segment of '20 Minute DIY jobs that anybody can do and save a bundle of cash'. One of these jobs happened to be re-sealing a bathroom.

So Rob is running through a series of questions with the audience: 'Is the sealant in your bathroom dry and cracked?' Check. 'Is the sealant in your bathroom moldy?' Check. 'Is the sealant in your bathroom separating from your baths, showers, and sinks?' Check, check, and check. And segment continues. Rob runs a Stanley knife under one edge of the sealant in the demonstration bathroom, grabs the end between his fingers, gives it a pull, and up it comes in one nice big 'easy-peasy' strip. Then he grabs his tube of sealant and his caulking gun, shows a 2 second clip of himself applying the new sealant then 'simply wiping off the excess with a finger' and 'Job's done'.

Then go-to-work Mum turns to stay-at-home Dad and says 'That looks easy. We need that done in our bathroom. That'll give you a project tomorrow.' And by now into my third and final lager for the evening I agreed.

A trip to the hardware store the next day allowed me to get a tube of fast drying, white coloured bathroom sealant and some cleaning solvent for cleaning up the old sealant. So my son and I got home, watched yet another Wiggles DVD and then he was off to bed for a nap. It was during this usual three hour nap time that I decided I would do my twenty minute project. I had a bath, vanity, and shower to seal and got hooked into it.

The first indication of an encroaching predator was when my thirty year old sealant did not want come zipping off the bath as easily as Rob's. My ears started to twitch. As a result, I had to get a razor blade and use it and a Stanley knife on the sealant to bring up the sealant teeny-tiny piece by teeny-tiny piece. By the time I got the sealant up on the bath and the vanity an hour had passed and I was beginning to cautiously sniff the air, definitely sensing a threatening presence.

The next step in this simple DIY project was to apply the new layer of sealant. On Better Homes & Gardens, the amazing Rob simply squeezed out a bead of sealant, wiped his finger along the joint and that was it. So, I started applying my bead of sealant, which was reasonably easy, with the hardest part being getting the sealant into the corners and following the curves of the bathtub. However, it was the next step that proved to be the most difficult. Upon wiping my finger along the joint to clean up the excess I discovered that what actually happened was the excess was smeared up to fifteen millimetres up both sides of the joint, creating a huge unattractive mess. Stay-at-home Dad was going to have big trouble with go-to-work Mum if this wasn't fixed before home-time.

This meant a bucket of warm water and a cloth to erase the excess excess. By the time I had finished running along both sides of the joints all along the bath and vanity with my wet cloth, my three hours was up and my son was starting to shout and demand another bottle of formula and yet another Wiggles DVD. But what about the shower? That's right. My twenty minute easy-peasy DIY job had taken me three hours and the job was only two-thirds complete. By this stage my ears were standing straight up, I was sniffing the air hungrily, my head was twisting around frantically, and I was fighting an overwhelming urge to urinate. However, my fight-or-flight instinct kicked in and I devised a cunning plan: stay-at-home Dad told go-to-work Mum that in his wisdom he'd decided to leave the shower until the following day as although the instructions on the sealant said it would be dry in two hours, he wanted to give it at least twenty four hours to make sure.

During nap time the following day, I decided to attack the shower. It began much the same as the bath: the old sealant refused to come up easily, or in the case of the shower, it refused to come up at all. The only course of action available was to take up a hammer and chisel and very gently, very carefully tap, tap, tap at the old sealant to remove it. Three cracked tiles later I had removed all the old sealant. Following this I had the same problems as I'd had with the bath and the vanity: smearing the sealant up both sides of the joint and having to spend a ridiculous amount of time cleaning it up with warm water and a cloth. Two hours later, the shower was finished. My twenty minute DIY easy-peasy job ended up taking me five hours over two days.

From this it can be seen that the natural predator of the stay-at-home Dad is indeed Rob, from Better Homes & Gardens. Now every time that show comes on the television my ears start to involuntarily twitch, my nose starts sniffing the air, and I have an unnervingly strong urge to urinate...

Typhoid Mary strikes Labrador! Australia Day postponed.

Mary Mallon was born in Ireland in 1869 and died in the United States in 1938. Although presenting no symptoms herself, she was personally responsible for infecting fifty-one people with typhoid, three of whom died. It is from this bearer of bacteria that modern society has the term 'Typhoid Mary'. What few people realise is that without the miracle of modern medicine, Mary spent a large part of life held in enforced quarantine: 1907 - 1910, and 1915 - 1938, totalling twenty-six of her sixty-nine years. 

It was this cycle of devastating disease and quarantine that befell our peaceful household in late January. 

It started, of course, with me. If anybody could be blamed for bringing such pestilence into our abode it would have to be the Suburban Aussie Dad. The issue of where I caught it is quite contentious. Being a stay-at-home Dad, my only point of contact with the outside world was my martial arts classes. The only exception to this is the supermarket, but I don't come into contact with anybody there, but there is, naturally, lots of contact in a martial arts class. I can't even blame my son's grotty little friends from his playgroups: they were all postponed over the school holiday period! So, given that my only actual physical contact with anybody outside the four walls of my house is at my martial arts class, I think it's safe to assume that was ground zero. However, given the reference to Typhoid Mary above, I can't be sure as no one I trained with was showing any symptoms of being ill at all. Indeed, anybody that trains at our gym would be responsible and respectful enough not to come to training if they were showing symptoms of illness. 

On the Monday night I went to training and by the time I went to bed I had a little tickle in the back of my throat. By Tuesday morning I had a frog in my throat, which by after training on Tuesday night had turned into a mild cough. When I awoke, or should I say, became one of the undead, on Wednesday morning, I looked that guy who got bit by a monkey in any one of a thousand deadly disease disaster films. I had a racking cough that doubled me over in pain, sore throat, headache, runny but still clogged nose, stuffed up sinuses, lost voice, and weepy eyes. My mother-in-law, who was house-sitting the neighbours house at the time, took one look at me and ran, leaving a Looney Tunes style cut-out in my freshly sanded and stained front door. My wife prepared herself for work, giving me a three metre wide berth at all times. My son, of course, was all over me. All the time. 

Hell hath no fury like a toddler with a cough, sore throat, headache, runny nose, stuffed sinuses, weepy eyes, and new teeth coming in. 

Hell hath no fury like a wife, who has been caring for a sick husband who has been caring for a sick baby, with a cough, sore throat, headache, runny nose, stuffed sinuses, weepy eyes. 

Hell gets it's ass kicked by an entire household that has a cough, sore throat, headache, runny nose, stuffed sinuses, and weepy eyes. 

I was so sick that I had to spend four night sleeping on the couch. Then, my wife got so sick that I had to spend another two nights sleeping on the couch. 

However, the real victim of this pandemic was Australia Day. We had met some new friends at the local dog park and had invited them over to the house for the first time for Australia Day, to try some food cooked on my new smoker. I'd been to the butcher and bought some beautiful lamb sausages with mint and rosemary, a leg of pork, and a leg of lamb. However, when the morning of Australia Day rolled around, despite my best efforts, it was all I could do to get out of bed in the morning. Naturally, we had to commit a huge social faux pas and cancel our plans to spend the day entertaining new friends. Unfortunately, the meat had already been frozen and defrosted so I had no choice. I had to go outside and cook up a storm despite feeling like something the cat coughed up. 

This was compounded by the fact that we suffered a torrential downpour, the final result of which was flooding across most of Queensland, and the Tourism Queensland 'postponing' Australia Day to a month later. (Unfortunately it was still raining even then!) Below is a picture of me in my raincoat heading outside to cook up our food. 

The food still turned out well though, and we had plenty stored in the freezer for the weeks to come. 

Even though Australia Day was ruined because of my ill health, I still managed to provide a meal for my family, even if it was water logged! 

Take care, 

SuburbanAussieDad

Hyde spotted in South East Queensland

Written by Robert Louis Stevenson and published in 1886, 'Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde' is the story of a respectable doctor who makes a potion which turns him into an unstoppable wrecking ball of rage. Initially, Hyde is able to revert to the likeable, sociable Jekyll, but before long the transitions become involuntary and eventually, permanent. Some modern iterations of the Jekyll/Hyde character include The Hulk and Two-Face, both of which are more easily palatable for a modern audience, but who lack the nuanced complexity of the original. Personally, it would seem to me that forty years ahead of his time, the humble Dr Jekyll invented PCP: the delightful 'party drug' that can give it's users hallucinations, paranoia, stop them from feeling pain thus effectively giving them superhuman strength, and making them violent against themselves and others.

So what does this have to do with Suburban Aussie Dad? Well, it all started with a sticky tap. The cold tap in our thirty year old kitchen became really sticky and had to be cranked down as hard as it could go in order to turn the water off. A few months earlier, a neighbour had tried to re-seat the taps for me but we couldn't remove the spindle, so I knew it wouldn't be an easy job to simply replace a worn washer. As a result, I did the typical home-handy man thing and ignored the problem hoping it would get better. Naturally, this resulted in my cracking the ancient brown plastic imitation glass tap handle, and so know the tap wouldn't work at all. Therefore, the next morning Evan and I went to our nearest warehouse hardware store after dropping the better half at work, to get some new taps. However, before work could begin, dishes needed to be done and the kitchen cleaned.  

Still desperately trying to avoid having to remove the assembly, I first removed the old tap and tried to fit the new taps. Naturally, things did not go smoothly. With the old handle removed, I discovered that the shape of the mountings of the new tap were different to those of the old tap and so there was no way it was going to work: I was going to have to go back to the hardware store. It was at this point that I caught my first fleeting glimpse of Hyde in the reflection of our stainless steel toaster. 

Unfortunately, before this could happen I needed to begin my second project for the day: smoking two orange marinated ducks. I went outside and spent some time setting up my smoker and lighting the fire.  As I walked past the kitchen window it was Dr Jekyll who's image I glimpsed. While I was waiting for the coals to get hot, I left Grammy at home with Evan, now asleep for his morning nap, and headed back to the hardware store to try and come up with another solution. Before this trip could be made I decided I was going to remove the tap spindle and take it with me to make certain I got something that would work with my antique taps. This process took about forty minutes of sweating, cursing, pushing, cursing, pulling, cursing, and then some more cursing. Finally I got the ancient spindle separated from the rest of the tap assembly, thanks in no small part to Mr Hyde's superhuman strength. 

Thus I was into the car and back to the hardware store, where a conversation with their plumber revealed that my tap assemblies were approximately one hundred years old, despite the house only being thirty years old and there were no products I could buy that would work with my old spindles. The solution therefore, was to buy all new spindles and equipment. The plumber gave me the required components and off I went. 

Arriving back at home, the coals were ready to put in the smoker, so the plumbing components got put aside and I went out to the backyard. As soon as I stepped outside I could feel Hyde slipping away and the dulcet tones of Dr Jekyll filled my ears as I began to work on the smoker. I set up the hardware, got the fire the way I wanted it and when I was happy that it was stable at the desired temperature, I put on the ducks. Sadly, I knew I had to finish fixing the taps, especially as the water was switched off and I'd been running around to the front yard of the neighbour's house to wash my hands and fill buckets of water for the smoker! Accordingly, I took three long deep breaths and entered back into the kitchen. 

I opened the packet containing the new spindles and the chrome-look plastic trim sleeves and set about my task. The new spindles fit beautifully into the old fittings, Dr Jekyll broke into a rousing rendition of 'God Save our King' and things were looking great. However, nothing could save the King from taking an absolute ear bashing from Hyde when the trim sleeves didn't fit: they were too wide. I later found out he'd sold me a set for wall mounted taps, not those mounted in a sink. So great was the wrath spewing forth from the cracked, broken, ground, rotting-teethed mouth of Mr Hyde that Grammy offered to take Evan to her place for the afternoon while I finished 'fixing' the sink. The ducks were slowly smoking out in the yard so it was back in the car for a third trip to the hardware store. 

The plumber at the hardware store rolled his eyes when he saw me walking toward him and said 'This job is becoming a bit of a marathon for you, isn't it?'. Hyde managed to growl something semi-polite before explaining the latest problem and finally left with two separate spindles and smaller trim sleeves. 

From my vantage point at the kitchen sink I could see my smoker doing it's thing in the back yard and my remote thermometer told me that the temperatures were where I expected. That fleeting glimpse of Dr Jekyll in my stainless steel toaster was the last I saw of him for a while. 

The second set of new spindles also fit beautifully and even better, the trim sleeves fit as well. Things were looking good until it came time to fit the new taps: the new handles sat so low on the new spindles that I couldn't shut off the water as the taps wound right down onto the trim sleeves. Unfortunately removing the trim sleeves didn't help: I could shut off the water, but I had to use all of Hyde's rage-induced strength to wrestle the taps down hard against the sink. 

After checking the smoker again, it was back to the hardware store before stopping in to pick up the wife from work and heading home. (That's four trips to the hardware store for those keeping count!) The car ride was pleasant if restrained until the wife asked me how the day had gone. Then it was a titanic struggle between Jekyll and Hyde as our car began careening through traffic. Fortunately Hyde is unable to drive like Vin Diesel and curse like Eddie Murphy at the same time, due to the soul-ripping rage and so we made it home safely. At this point my wife decided she'd like to go to Grammy's house to 'see how Evan's doing'. 

If you've been paying attention, you can probably predict that the spindle extensions the hardware store sold me wouldn't fit. My wife arrived home around the same time and upon hearing Hyde doing his thing in the kitchen, called out from the driveway that she'd called a plumber who was going to be there in an hour and that I should go out back, sit in the hammock, watch the smoker and play some guitar. After thinking this over for a few moments, I packed up the circular saw, erased the cut lines from around the sink and Hyde and I skulked out back. 

By the time the plumbers arrived Jekyll was back in control enough to be polite to the men who were here to finish my job and it was at this point that Jekyll began to tighten the arm bar on Hyde and my day turned around. What was supposed to be a quick, emasculating job of fitting a tap which should have taken one plumber ten minutes took two plumbers almost an hour. Turns out they had to re-level the whole tap assembly which involved cutting out the old copper pipes under the sink, changing the mounting points and fitting braided lines, like after market hoses on an eighteen year old boy racer's imported Japanese drift car. Bottom line, it wasn't a simple job that I could have simply done by my simple self. Masculinity and more importantly ego, restored. 

Which leads to the diamond hidden within the rock of my day: my twin smoked orange marinated ducks. Sometime between trip two and trip four to the hardware store I put on a pan of vegetables once the smoking phase had finished. The finished results speak for themselves. 

The question that has to be asked must be: what did Suburban Aussie Dad learn from all this? That it doesn't matter if you fail at something that you try and do. Your whole day can be one trip down the porcelain bus after another, but something will go right for you somewhere in your day. Take that victory and to say to hell with the rest. Keep that success in your mind and the next day will seem easier. That's what I'm telling myself anyway! ;) 

Cheers, 

Ben

Cooking in bulk on a BBQ Smoker

It is a closely guarded secret that when men are on their own, their cooking skills are a shining example of minimalist efficiency: a microwaved meat pie and barbecue sauce, a random piece of a random animal and barbecue sauce, or a potato chip sandwich. And barbecue sauce. In truth, it is a source of pride: if we can cook it and eat it from the one saucepan, thus saving an extra seven seconds during the fortnightly washing up, it's a recipe that's committed to memory and repeated as often as possible. Furthermore, if it can be knocked together during the half-time break of a State of Origin game, it is written in a secret journal suspended under the workbench in the shed and handed down to our sons when they leave home. 

However, there are more than a few half-time breaks between when the kids arrive, and when they move out and during this time, our gender-specific cooking skills are not appreciated by certain members of the general community such as wives, girlfriends, and the Department of Community Services. Thus it comes to be that the stay-at-home Dad must fight against countless generations of genetically encoded two minute meals and prepare balanced, healthy food for his family. 

Despite this, the basic instincts still prevail and the attraction of meat and fire proves irresistible. Barbecuing as a means of preparing meals tends to be relegated to weekends and special occasions, however, many stay-at-home Dads find themselves staring longingly out the window at their loyal, trusty grill whilst working over a hot stove in a sweaty kitchen. This was the situation I found myself in,  and in keeping with the minimalist male cooking style I wanted to be as efficient as possible. My goal was to find something I could cook on a barbecue, would be wife/DOCS approved, and would last for several meals. 

My first port of call was to join a barbecue enthusiast forum and have a look at some of the things that people were cooking and sharing before deciding that I was going to have a go at Pulled Pork. In America, the cut of meat is called a Boston Butt, but in Australia it is a pork shoulder roast. Fortunately, I'd been a very good boy this year and Santa gave me an upright water smoker for Christmas and I was eager to test it out. I found a recipe for it in the book that came with it, as well as recipes for a barbecue spice rub and spicy apple barbecue sauce. 

I went to my local butcher and explained that I wanted to do a Boston Butt and he got me a 5 kilo bone-in shoulder cut and even trimmed the skin off for me! :) 

And here it is with the spice rub applied, injected with Coca Cola, and wrapped in Glad Wrap to sit overnight. 

I got up at 6.30am the next morning and grabbed the pork out of the fridge and let it sit for about an hour to get to room temperature. I used this time to get the coals lit and ready. At 7.40am I was satisfied that the temperature was holding steady and whacked on the pork.

By 7pm that night the meat was cooked and I was able to start pulling it apart. 

Pulled Pork is traditionally eaten on fluffy white bread rolls, with a side of basic salad, and the aforementioned home-made spicy apple barbecue sauce, so that's what we did. Thus the remaining question must be how does this possibly qualify as an efficiently minimalistic meal when it took all day to cook? 

Firstly, the preparation time, including making the spice rub and the barbecue sauce was about two hours, though next time I do it will be faster. The meat itself was simply set and forget: I used a digital meat thermometer with an alarm to tell me when the meat had reached the desired temperature. Even though it took all day to cook, it really only took a half hour to set the fire and get it burning nicely, and what bloke would ever resent having to spend a half hour to light a good cooking fire? :)

The true beauty of this dish is its ability to be reused. We have three adults living here at the moment: myself, the wife, and the mother-in-law. We had a meal out of it the first night, and the following day I divided the rest into zip lock bags for future meals. In total I had five zip lock bags of meat left over for future meals. Given there are three of us here, that's six meals, or eighteen serves. The meat itself can be used in different dishes: the next night we had smoked pork burritos. Very efficient! Even better, my smoker has two cooking grills, so for the same amount of prep time, I could cook two of these Boston Butts, totalling twelve meals or thirty-six serves! With a three hour prep time, that's fifteen minutes per meal. 

Furthermore, it was very well received: my wife told me she wants me to cook on the smoker more often, my mother-in-law who is from Arkansas in the south of America and a fanatical foody told me it was the best Pulled Pork she'd ever had and my one year old enjoyed the little pieces we gave him too. However, would DOCS approve of this meal? Given that there are no artificial colours, flavours, preservatives or additives, (aside from the little bit of Coca Cola mentioned earlier!) I'm quite confident they'd give me their red rubber stamp of approval. 

What does all this mean for the stay-at-home Dad? I have the opportunity to make twelve meals at a time, eleven of which can be prepared during the half-time break in a State of Origin game, it passes the mum test, the mother-in-law test, and I'd wager the DOCS test, and it's set and forget, giving me more time to sit outside in the grass playing Wiggles songs on my guitar while my son bashes along on his dinosaur xylophone. It's a win all round for the stay-at-home Dads!

Cheers, 

Ben

A bit about me

Hi everyone, 

This may be narcissistic, but I thought I might give you a little info about me, and what this blog is about. 

I'm a thirty-something married father of one, living on the Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia. I'm an average Aussie bloke: average height, build, looks, skills, and intelligence. I'm university educated and my most recent position was a department head at a university. However, I've recently learned that life can change very quickly. Thanks to the global financial crisis and the subsequent downturn in the global economy I recently found myself made redundant from my job and am now a member of a growing segment of our community: the stay-at-home Dads. 

The most significant issue stay-at-home Dads have to deal with is social standards and expectations, which influence the expectations we have of ourselves. We have grown up indoctrinated with concepts of manhood, and what it means to be a man. The stereotypes are extremely pervasive in our communities and have been drummed into us all from an early age: how many of you can remember your parents telling you 'boys don't cry'? As a result, finding ourselves in the position of becoming a stay-at-home dad can be a very confronting situation leading us to question and judge ourselves as 'men' and in some instances can lead to feelings of being a 'failure as a man'. The most common question I've heard, and indeed asked myself at times, is 'What kind of a man can't provide for his family?'

When faced with that question, I believe it's important to remind ourselves what exactly it is that families need. Naturally, the first thing that comes to mind is money: money is how we can get some of the other things that we need, and we all know kids aren't cheap! Unfortunately this is what most men think of as 'providing' when they think about providing for their family. However, families need far more than this. They need a home, they need healthy meals, they need clean clothes, they need healthy and happy parents, and most of all, they need love. The stereotypes that I've been discussing above would have us believe that it is the man's job to provide the money: the Dad goes to work to make money and the Mum stays at home. To this, I'd like to pose the question: 'Does it matter who mows the lawn, washes the dishes, or polishes the car? Does it make a difference to the grass, the plates, or the car? Then why should it matter who makes the money?' A family has many needs, and a man who is providing any of these is doing his duty as a man. 

This leads us to discussing the point of this blog and what you can expect to read here. My intention is to write about my experiences, successes and failures in my role as a stay-at-home Dad. I want to discuss issues facing stay at home Dads and ideas for overcoming them. I will spare you a daily update of how long it took me to do the dishes, or my favourite brand of window cleaner though if anybody really wants to know, just ask!

I'm looking forward to sharing with you!

Ben