I’m almost officially two years into my gig as a dad, and I think it’s pretty safe to say I am DOMINATING the category. If this were the Olympics I’d be like the U.S. Women, mostly that chick that shoots them skeets real good.

Seriously, three questions this week! My authority is being recognized!

(Recognize my authority at your own risk, right here.)

Dear Dad and Buried,

Can you do “cry it out” w/a toddler? Like, just lock their door or something?

– Jordan – (Find Jordan adorably clueless? Follow him on Twitter for more hilarious parenting misadventures that he’ll probably call on me to solve!)

Jordan,

Funny story: YOU CAN DO WHATEVER YOU WANT TO A TODDLER. Seriously. They can’t stop you! So unless your kid is Kal-El, he is shit out of luck when it comes to being the boss of you. So crying it out, while certainly difficult at any age (and we did it when the kid was a baby) and potentially even more difficult when the kid is old enough to call for you by name, is really just a matter of stamina. Or compassion. Luckily my compassion went the way of Krypton the day the family dog bit my arm and sent me to the hospital. After all we’d done for him!

Now once you’ve numbed yourself, the issue becomes one of annoyance. Kids can scream pretty loudly and that’s no fun. Which is why whenever my toddler attempts to wail his way out of his bed, I do lock his door, then I grab a sixer and blast my Led Zeppelin How the West Was Won concert DVDs. Either he screams himself to sleep or I pass out during Bonzo’s 37-minute performance of “Moby Dick”. The only downside is the next morning, when your wife has to clean the puke. Yours and/or his. But that’s what I call a HP: Her problem.

Take This Under Advisement, Jerkweed,

Dad and Buried

Dear Dad and Buried,

I know, through personal experience and by reading articles and blogs on parenting like yours, that having a child changes you. What I want to know is how it has changed you – were you mundane and boring before and has your son made you funny and witty now? Or were you hilarious before and now how become cynical yet amusing?

– Mad and Married

Mad and Married,

I have always been cynical; I actually emerged from the uterus already thinking Ron Howard movies were some bland, sugar-coated bullshit. The jury is still out on how amusing and/or hilarious I may be, but I always tell my wife that I’m the funniest person she’s ever met, which I firmly believe is true and she repeatedly dismisses with an eyeroll. But wives’ opinions don’t matter, especially wives that like Jim Carrey’s The Grinch Who Stole Christmas. Anyhoo, it’s not as easy for me to work blue with my son in the room, so my hilariousness may have suffered a little from a lack of dick jokes, but I certainly haven’t gotten boring.

I’ve occasionally gotten quite bored, however, as a toddler’s company can leave something to be desired, but that’s his fault, not mine. So no, my personality hasn’t changed all that much. I’m a lot more tired, I am more likely to have poop hidden somewhere on my person than I ever was pre-fatherhood, and I’ve become less judgmental when it comes to other parents since learning how tricky the experience can be. But one of my goals was always to hang onto my personality, and I think I’ve done a pretty good job of that so far. I’m still the same cynical jerk I always was.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go twirl in circles while singing “Call Me Maybe” beside my son.

Take This Under Advisement, Jerkweed,

Dad and Buried

Dear Dad and Buried

You’re really into this dad thing now, eh?

– An Old Friend

An Old Friend,

First off: you’re dead to me now. But before letting our friendship evaporate like dust in the wind, let me address your question.

The fact is, if you’re a dad and you don’t go pretty much all-in on the while dad thing, then you’re probably not going to be father of the year anytime and there’s a great chance your kid will listen to Skrillex and/or start calling himself Flynn. But that’s not to say there is only one color to the All-in Daddy Rainbow. I refuse to succumb to the idea that if I don’t abandon all vestiges of my pre-father personality and lifestyle, that if I don’t become a boring drag who speaks of nothing but his kids and has no life outside of parenthood, that if I don’t buy mom jeans (or whatever the dad equivalent is) and a fanny pack I can’t be an excellent father to my son.

But I won’t pretend that becoming a father ISN’T like joining a cult. You won’t have quite as much time with your old friends. And there will be times you don’t recognize yourself. But just make sure you counter those moments with a few where you reaffirm the person you were before, whether that means getting black-out drunk (without the baby around, please), or going to a music festival (without Phish, please), or spending a weekend building a kitchen table and then never ever ever letting anyone forget that you built it all by your lonesome (it really is a nice table, pal. Kudos.)! Becoming a father shouldn’t mean your old self is replaced by a pod person; maintaining some semblance of your old lifestyle and personality should make you more well-rounded and therefore an even better dad to your kid.

Just make sure you get all the drugs out of your system before you get back in the house.

Take This Under Advisement, Jerkweed,

Dad and Buried

Please direct all questions, comments, hate mail, death threats and accolades to the Parental Advisories page, to ensure that I receive them and can respond accordingly. Jerkweed!