I'm a Better Blogger Than A. J. Gill is a Singer

What on Earth could I possibly have in common with A.J. Gill?

I guess a better question would be, who the hell is A. J. Gill?  Well, if you are a huge American Idol fan, like myself, you would obviously know him as the eighth place finisher in the the shows inaugural season. Most people remember Kelly Clarkson belting out "A Moment Like This" as confetti rained down after she was declared the winner.  What I take from that show is all the people that lost, mostly A.J. Gill.

Why would I care about him?

I am an eighth place finisher too.

I had aspirations like him to be the best.  I never enter into anything that I don't think I can win.  It's partially why I would never enter a marathon.  I mean I could run my ass off and still finish a full day behind the winner. What's the point in that?  So when I had the opportunity last year to audition for a new competition named Blogger Idol, I jumped right in.  How hard could it be? You write, get critiqued, you advance.

And that's what happened.

Only I didn't advance as far as I thought I would.  I ran into a bunch of Kelly Clarksons and Justin Guarinis, hell maybe I was the Sanjaya Malakar of the competition and they only had me in it to make fun of me. Hmm.

I lost.

But that's not what I took out of the competition.  It would have been nice to win, even though I still am not quite sure what the winner got, but I was OK with that.  This dad with a bizarre obsession over Legos was clearly a storyteller.  I never thought of myself as such before, but Blogger Idol made me think otherwise.

If you want the chance to be the NEXT BLOGGER IDOL I urge you to try out before Monday September 17th at Midnight. What have you got to lose?  Yours truly will be a judge in the competition; I guess it pays to come in eighth place sometimes.  You can follow Blogger Idol on Facebook or Twitter for more information.

Hopefully A.J. Gill is plugging along somewhere out there, because I'm not stopping what I do anytime soon.

John Willey - Daddy's in Charge?

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Farewell Blogger Idol

Wait.

Did something just happen?

You are telling me that I am not going to be 2011's Blogger Idol?

Man I always had visions in my head that I would be singing "A Moment Like This" as confetti rained down on me after I was announced as the winner.  I never enter into anything that I don't think I can win, it's partially why I will never enter a marathon.  I mean I could run my ass of and still lose by a mile or 24 for that matter.  I was undefeated as a cub scout in the Pinewood Derby until my last race.  For three years my little 5 ounce car was faster than everyone else, but I will be haunted by my last race.  My car flew off the track and I lost.  I was devastated to say the least.  I want to remember the wins but what sticks with me is the LOSS.  Stupid Pinewood Derby.

Anyway this is different, what I will remember most about this loss is the fine group of people I was associated with.  These guys are some talented writers, and while I never thought of myself as such, it was GREAT to be included.  I was able to discover blogs that I never would have otherwise, and have developed relationships with people I have never actually met.  That's pretty cool.

From the get go I thought that the cards were stacked against me.  I never thought that I would actually make it into this competition, but as the weeks went by Daddy's in Charge turned into a locomotive that was picking up steam.  Positive feedback, votes for me, banners hanging up at supermarkets, and front page stories in the local newspaper… everything was rolling along.  Then all of a sudden, my train derailed, and my dream of being Blogger Idol was ruined. 

I think what finally did me in was my lack of wanting to talk about myself.  I like to write about OTHER people, mainly my kids.  I am sure that I am not alone in this thinking.  It's just not easy to write about yourself all the time.  I will say this though, I have learned something about myself in this competition, maybe I CAN write.  It's not something I would ever think I can do for a living, but I got some talent there.  Some people are so good at it though they could probably rewrite the phonebook and make it sound interesting.  I won't go that far with myself, but I could probably write some sort of manual about how to win the Pinewood Derby.

Just stay on the track. 

That's what I will do, stay on the track.  I'll keep blogging trying to entertain as many people as I can.

John Willey - Daddy's in Charge?

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Blogger Idol 2011... Week Three

So I have moved on to week four in Blogger Idol!  This weeks double elimination spared me the axe.  It was closer than I would have liked, but it just proves that every vote counts, so please continue to vote each week until I am gone, which hopefully won't be until the Finale.

This week we were asked to team up with another finalist and write a joint piece, an interview of sorts.  I was fortunate to team up with Mama Mash, another stay at home parent from Kansas City, you can read about her here.  She has quite a story and is a very clever writer.  The judges were pleased with the direction that we took, but they seemed less than thrilled about the lack of research it seemed we did on each other.  I actually read every single post she made, so the research was there.  As far as doing an interview based on your blog, thats boring.  If you wanted to find out about the blog, you could just read it.  The idea is to get a better understanding of the person, not the blog, something I believe that we did.

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John and Julie do the same job (stay-at-home parents), have the same hobby (blogging), hell, they even studied the same thing in college (journalism). This makes them both curious writers who are used to captaining the ship. Take a peek as the authors of Daddy’s in Charge? and Mamamash try to get a glimpse into what it’s like when the other parent is running the show.

Who does what?

Julie: What have you and your wife agreed upon as your job description?

John: My wife Jenn and I just had this conversation last week, and it really has become an issue in our house. There are times when all of it just gets too overwhelming and things spiral out of control. My house is a mess, my refrigerator is bare, and my kids don't have matching socks. I like to think that as long as the kids are alive, I have been doing my job. 

As far as my wife is concerned it needs to be much more than that though, I need to take a more active role in their development and wellbeing. I have my normal duties like cooking, cleaning, and laundry like any stay at home parent, although I still struggle with my wife's laundry from time to time. There are just too many different settings to worry about. Mine all goes in one load, one temperature. Hers, I actually have to read the label. It sucks.  

Julie: I think Maslow’s hierarchy of needs comes into play here. If my refrigerator were empty, my husband wouldn’t care if the house were a mess or if the laundry weren’t done. He’d follow me around whimpering “Food. Food. Fooooood.” 

John: So what’s the grocery-shopping strategy. Coupons? 

Julie: My husband absolutely abhors shopping unless it involves electronics or liquor, so I do the majority of our food shopping. I've never shopped with coupons until this year when I decided it would be fun to try this new "extreme couponing" thing. Hubs was tolerant of my new hobby until he went looking for a wrench and was surprised by a year's supply of Playtex Sport nestled among his tools. 

To be honest, I didn't really enjoy all the work it required, although I now have enough toothpaste to survive a shortage in the event of the zombie apocalypse. Now that things are back to a much more normal scale, I poke around in the fridge to see what we need, quiz the man of the house as to his current menu requests, make a list that I then forget on the table, and enjoy a couple of hours to myself at the market.

Cooking, Cleaning, Keeping calm

Julie:  Honey I'm home.  What's for dinner?

John: This is tough because my wife comes home late many nights, so having something fancy just isn't going to happen. I know that the boys would not appreciate the hard work that goes into cooking a meal, and actually getting the time to cook it is another issue. 

There will be nights though when I know that she is coming home for dinner, and I will make something more than just Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. When the weather is nice, it usually means something on the grill like a steak or chicken and probably some grilled vegetables. Anything involving a grill, I am a man after all! 

Julie: So then, what's for breakfast? And I gotta ask, where are the dishes 45 minutes later?

John: I wish every meal were breakfast. It's the only meal that I let the kids pick out and it's always the easiest. I would like to say that it is totally balanced with fruits and yogurt but its usually cereal or waffles or eggs. My kids are never really big eaters so when they are done, the dishes get put right in the dishwasher. I like to have a clean kitchen table. If nothing else in my house is clean at least the table is. As for when the dishes are clean and need to be put away, well you can come over and do that for me. 

Julie: That’s the first thing I do in the morning while the baby is eating. Might as well get the drudgery over with quickly. 

John: I will tell you that I have a cleaning crew that comes once a week, and while that might sound like I am cheating when it comes to cleaning, I also take care of the lawn mowing and all other outdoor projects so I can be quite busy. 

Julie: I don’t know if I could handle having someone else cleaning my house. My husband says there’s “man clean” and then there’s “Julie clean,” and he’s right, I’m picky about it’s done. 

John: Well, then who mows your lawn?

Julie: I was a single girl and a homeowner for years before I met my husband, and I mowed that damn acre religiously until I could afford to pay the neighbor to do it. It is exclusively now hubs' job, one of his chores for which I do not have to trade sexual favors. It's actually funny to see the peer pressure among the neighborhood men at work here. If one guy gets up early on Saturday and mows, the rest of them are out there with a quickness. Life in the suburbs, man. 

John: There’s no pressure where I live because everyone else has a landscaper. I choose to do it myself and it shows. If you drive into my development and see a yard that's all brown and has weeds growing out of the bushes, chances are you stumbled on my property. I have a lawnmower, I might as well use it, unlike all the lazy men in my neighborhood. I will tell you there is pressure among the ladies though. Every time I drop my kid off at a play date at one of their friends’ houses, everything is so neat and tidy, I just don't understand how they do it. 

Julie: Alright then, you just stepped on an action figure, so it's time to clean. What's your strategy? 

John: There is a strategy? I guess if I didn't just pick it up and throw it in the garbage I would toss it across the room into the big pile of action figures we have in our living room. Did I mention to you that I have Legos scattered all over my house? They pretty much cover every square inch of flooring. At last count I think we had 7,673 Lego mini-figures in our house. That’s more that the population of the town that I grew up in! It's hard not to walk on Lego Clone Trooper, or get stabbed by Lego knife in my house. My boys would play with Legos 365 days a year if they could. Sometimes we have to go on vacation, you know, just to get away from the Legos. You have a boy, see what you are in store for? 

Julie: I totally prefer action figures and Legos to princess stuff and glitter everywhere. Boys are easier, I think. Well, at first. Until they become mobile, though. Then it’s like a race to see which bone we can break first. 

John: Do you find yourself hovering with every step? At the playground, stuff like that. 

Julie: I always thought I would be a helicopter-ish mom, but I've been pleasantly surprised by myself. I do keep a watchful eye on him at all times while he cruises around the room terrorizing anything with a tail or a cord, but if he gets himself in a bind I'll hang back a bit and give him a chance to figure it out before I rescue him. I'd like to be a parent who balances well between avoiding x-rays and not raising a gigantic wuss. 

John: What about when he seems sick or does hurt himself? 

Julie: We're just approaching the end of the first year with our son, and he's only been sick twice. All hail the power of boob juice. But anytime he starts to look or act a little off, I break out the rectal thermometer, or as hubs calls it, The Violator, and check for a fever. No fever? Here, have some gripe water. When he had a cold, I knew not to bother bringing him in to the doctor because they'd just happily pocket my co-pay and tell me, "Fluids, mwahmwahmwah, humidifier." 

We took turns staying up through the night with him. It was lots of not fun. He hurt himself for the first time today, gashed his eyebrow after faceplanting into our subwoofer. Gave me that terrifying open-mouth silent scream. I might have gotten a little panicky, but in my defense, it was first thing in the morning when logic hasn't had time to settle into its cubicle for the day. He was fine once he saw the Cheerios box.  

Routine, Routine, Routine

Julie: It's naptime, what are you doing?

John:  If it's naptime, I am usually asleep while the boys play all around me. Two kids can be quite tiring sometimes. As for them, they are beyond naptime, although my youngest could use one from time to time, he can be a nightmare to deal with, without enough sleep. Tonight he went to bed at 10:00, so I am screwed in the morning. 

Julie: My son has been refusing single-digit bedtimes as well lately. 

John: What’s your process for putting him to bed? 

Julie: I'm a pretty strict mom about bedtime, because I believe it keeps the drama to a minimum, and no one wants to see me throw a temper tantrum. From the first day we took him home, it's been bath, bottle, buddy, bed. 

He began sleeping through the night at six weeks, so I felt pretty smug until this last month, when he decided that he'd set his own bedtime, and it wasn't going to be a single-digit hour. We've reached a compromise, I believe, but I have a suspicion that he's still negotiating terms in his head. So now it's dinner, bath, playtime, snuggles and bed. He goes to bed by himself, in his crib, lulled to sleep by the soothing strains of the Glee soundtrack. Do you have any idea how annoying this music is? If I have to listen to Proud Mary as sung by the Geek Squad one more time...I will shut my effing mouth and endure it, because it will make my kid sleep. 

John: We tried those stupid books on CD and they worked great for about a month, I used to get bored to tears by the Three Little Pigs. If I had to hear that one more time I would huff and puff and blow someone's head off. It can be a little difficult at times being a stay at home dad, there are just things that women do better than men. 

I put a question mark on the title of my blog for a reason. I ask myself everyday "Daddy's in Charge?" then I come to the conclusion that no I am not, there are two boys here that have way more power than I do. I need someone to periodically tell these boys who is boss, someone like Mamamash. Why? Because she's the mama...and she said so. 

Julie: Thanks for that. I think men and women parent differently for a reason – it creates a healthy balance. And you’re right, it doesn’t matter if Daddy’s in Charge or if I’m the mama and I said so, because the kids hold just as many cards as we do, even though we like to pretend they don’t. You can find John and Julie at www.daddysincharge.com and www.mamamash.com.

Judges Comments:

"I liked the conversational tone, and how even though one of you would ask the question, often you would both answer it in your discussion back and forth.

What I didn't get a feel for though, is whether or not you did any "research" on each other before you conducted the interview. Your blogs weren't mentioned at all, but then again you are very similar to each other in some ways and so it could be assumed that you were more curious about each other's typical day than you were about each other's blog. You didn't really have to explain your job to each other, because you both do the same thing (if that makes any sense at all).

All in all, I think it was well thought out and well written. Nice work!"

Amy, from Non-Stop Mom 

"I really liked this. You guys picked a great way to go about it, with the whole 'he does, she does' thing. I can honestly say I don't ever think I would have thought of that. It was very clever, and I liked that you guys had an overall topic and then discussed things within that topic. It made it seem very put together and organized, and very natural. "

Heather, from My Husband Ate All My Ice Cream 

"I liked that this had a conversational flow and that you broke it down into categories. I also like how, in one way or another, you each answered the questions. I think that the questions gave a great insight into each others lives/routines and, in turn, gave us a good perspective of what it's like to parent from the other side.

I think it flowed well, was put together nicely, and seemed very natural."

Kim, from Mamas Monologues 

"I really like this one. The discussion style was easy to read and the topics flowed easily, and it was interesting to see how a stay at home dad deals with things different from a stay at home mom. I can also so glimpses of your blog styles and personality, which is great.

Having a theme (stay at home parents in this case) really helps tighten things up, and you guys did a great job."

Alison, from Mama Wants This! 

"I also liked the conversational tone and you do get to know each other better. I have to agree with Non-Stop Mom when she says that you do not get the picture that you did a lot of background research, but the interviews works. I loved the part about extreme coupon shopping for a zombie apocalypse - nice! Nice blend of both humor and seriousness. Good job!"

Chris, from Dad of Divas

John Willey - Daddy's in Charge?

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Blogger Idol 2011... Unnatural Woman

So thanks to your help I am on to week THREE of Blogger Idol 2011.  The assignment was a tough one that stretched my imagination, "If you could be the opposite sex for a day."  Fortunately the judges were kind to me.  Without further ado here was my entry for week two.

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There are certain things in life that men should experience--being a woman for a day is one of them.  How better to understand their world than to step into one of their many shoes.  The obvious way to spend the day is to stay at home and pleasure myself.  I have heard that there are men who will sit for hours in front of a computer watching women do this very act.  What they are doing themselves I don't know, but if it's good enough for these guys to watch, then it must be even better to participate in.  But I am not going to do that, I have a list of things to do, I just hope I don't waste too much time sobbing and talking about my feelings to get it all done.

• Since I decided that I am not going to stay home and take care of business myself, I still need to know what it feels like to be a woman.   There are a few obvious choices like Ryan Reynolds or Brad Pitt, but there is only one stallion I'm hopping on,  FABIO.  I have to see for myself what all this fuss was about (20 years ago).  Any man that can sell butter taste is my kind of man.
• Now that those two minutes are over I need to go on with some shopping.  The first thing that I need is some cellulite cream.  All the ladies seem to be using something that makes their asses red, tingly, and hot, but my ass looks like an orange rind so I am not sure which one to get. Maybe I can just rub one of these miracle creams all over my body so I can transform back to the woman I was 15 years ago?

• I need a bra.  Not just any bra, I need a bra that is going to give me the boobs of an 18 year old.  37 years and gravity have taken their toll on these saggy lumps.  It's time to jack these suckers up, to trick everyone into thinking I have had some work done.
• I need a bag.  This is a tricky one because it can't simply hold my wallet and car keys, it has to be an overpriced accessory, able to hold something the size of a small child.  While I am at it, I might as well buy another one just in case I am able to go for a night on the town.  That one has to be the smallest bag imaginable, with only enough room to carry lipgloss.
• Time for shoe shopping!  How many do I need?  I need black, brown, tan, high heels, flats, boots, so doing the math I need exactly... (carry the one) 137 pairs.  One for every occasion that I might come across.  Make it 138 just in case one of my heels breaks.

• I need a manicure and pedicure.  I have been a guy for way too long, and much to my wife's chagrin, not one of those so called metrosexual guys that would get something like this done.  I am headed to the beach later so there is no better time than the present.  The beach won't ruin any work that I got done.  If it does, I will just go back and get another one tomorrow because I like getting my feet tickled.
• I am curious about this thing called a Brazilian, I was thinking I might get it done.  But as I chat with the other ladies over soy chai lattes, the thought of being spread eagle while someone plucks hair I didn't know I had from my nether regions, just doesn't sound appealing enough to make myself look like a prepubescent teen.  

• With all the shopping out of the way, I have to go to "ladies night."  There is nothing more flattering than being hit on by middle-aged dudes who think they still got it (especially when they tuck their sweatshirts into their hemmed jeans and dance around in their Wal-Mart issued cowboy boots). I will tease them into thinking that they have a chance, so they will spend their hard earned money buying Apple Martinis for me and my friends.  If I did end up going home with one of these studs, it's only because Fabio didn't seal the deal.
• While it may be "life changing" to experience childbirth, I am certainly not jumping into the body of a pregnant woman late in her third trimester, when I have all this hooking up and shopping to do.  I just trust that there is no feeling like it and that pushing a bowling ball through an opening the size of a straw is something that a man should not experience.  I by the way would not wish you getting hit in the nuts by a tennis ball from five feet away. That's not to say that it is similar, just saying.

Some things I will not touch

Whether or not I can fit this all in my day depends on how many times I start sobbing uncontrollably.  I would like to think I could control my emotions, but with all of these newfound hormones, I don't know if this is possible.  It's probably best that I do just stay home home, set up a webcam, and pleasure myself while some guy in Kansas get his jollies.  That way I can go on Facebook and Twitter to complain about how much I hate my kids and how much they drive me to drink, as if I am the only woman with these problems.  Oh wait, I already do that as a man.  I guess I am more like a woman than I thought.

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Judges Comments:

"funny stuff! thats quite a tall order to get done in one day! simple, easy to follow, & funny. good post! "

Erica, from Good Job Momma

"I like how you set up the play-by-play of your day and really let us in on your womanly decision making, weighing out the pros and cons of things such as staying home and pleasuring yourself all day vs. shopping and mani/pedi's. Good comedic writing with a touch of sentiment here and there. "

Random Girl, from Random Girl Blog

"I really enjoyed this post. I laughed mostly all the way through it shaking my head affirmatively. Well done! "

T. Rojas, from Motherhood: The Definition of Insanity

John Willey - Daddy's in Charge?

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