Grasshopper New Media Presents...

In the basement of the Embassy Theatre is a makeup room.
The Embassy is one of those huge silent movie houses that turned into a theater with a stage and Philharmonic concerts and Broadway shows and singing kids. Under the stage are dressing rooms and closets and restrooms and a makeup room. A makeup room gives […]

As I sit here typing, 4 boys are sprawled about the room engrossed in a silly show on the television.  They’re not paying attention to the tapping on the keyboard or the fact that I keep staring at them over the laptop.
I love watching them when they don’t know I’m looking.  Their expressions as they […]

Through no fault of my own, I’m in that mode again. You know the one - just put your head down and do the work - automatic pilot. I hate it. And I’m very bad at it. I get stressed and grouchy and short-tempered.
We aren’t designed to do and do and […]

My oldest niece had such a creative costume for Halloween this year: she placed a stuffed chicken on her head (looked like a big, fluffy hat), and painted her face like a cracked egg, her take on being an egghead.
Seeing the pictures of her in her costume, I thought back to when I was around […]

Last weekend, I had plans to sleep in. And I mean SLEEP IN. As any mother knows, that really translates to laying in bed until 9, ’cause key-ripes 5:30 am, everyday? Sucks. Because my children are 6 and 7, and well-trained, I can occasionally do this. Having a relaxing morning experience with Aftermath is a […]

I always laugh when I see that on a piece of paper in the middle of a manual or a set of instructions. I sneer at the designer who couldn’t figure out how to make the number of pages line up. I disparage the consumers of the manual who can’t tell that a page is […]

We spent Labor Day weekend with my parents. We is Nancy and I and Andrew (21) and Hope (17). My parents spend the summer in northwestern Wisconsin, so the weekend included twelve hours of driving each way from our home in Indiana.
A few days before our trip, my mother left a message on my phone. […]

Working Mom and I are expecting our second baby girl in November! By New Year’s Eve, I’ll be a stay-at-home dad to two girls under 3.
I’m so screwed.
I feel completely competent as a stay-at-home parent, sometimes. (Some rare and brief times, but some times all the same.) Last Wednesday, for example, I was lifting a […]

I’ve never smoked a cigarette or gotten a tattoo. I don’t even have my ears pierced. My closet sports no designer clothing or shoes. I’ve never even lived close enough to a major city to be in the know about the hottest nightspots or newest underground bands. My pregnancy, like most other things in my […]

It’s lunchtime as I write this, and I’m sitting in a family-friendly restaurant. Near me is a table with two mothers and a bunch of children. The two oldest, about 7 and about 5, in identical tie-dyed shirts, seem to be brothers. About a minute ago their mom took them to the rest […]