{"id":9637,"date":"2026-05-22T01:56:42","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T01:56:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/?p=9637"},"modified":"2026-05-22T04:59:04","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T04:59:04","slug":"so-busy-lots-of-imperial-entanglements-but-were-winning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/22\/so-busy-lots-of-imperial-entanglements-but-were-winning\/","title":{"rendered":"So Busy… LOTS of “Imperial Entanglements” but We’re Winning!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Greetings and Salutations!
OK…
Sorry for the absence\/AWOL status again!<\/strong>
LOTS of ‘moving parts’ as of late…

Child Protective Services inspections\/interviews
(all passed with flying colors!)

Legal Advisory teams helping with the Adoption
(In progress)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Job searches
(HA!!!! Like I’m ever<\/strong> getting a job again in this <\/strong>fucking Hellscape Economy!)

So needless to say, by the time “Blegg-Time” comes about, all I want is a six pack of cold ones and a bed. It’s like being on extended operations. Case in point: Cleaning the house up with a purpose<\/strong>. Got to make sure the house\/crib is clean-clean<\/strong> not “acceptable Infantry Clean” but “Baby Clean\/Inspection Clean” which is a whole other level…

Bottle Cleaning
LOTS of bottle cleaning.
I totally forgot that part of fatherhood…

Diapers
Oh holy SHIT the diapers.
Literally and figuratively.
The Muldoon (or Doonie as I call him on the casual) is sooooo full of piss and vinegar, never mind that HORRIFIC green<\/strong> baby-poop.

Interesting side note:
Not sure when ‘things’ changed, but back about 4\/5 years ago when we were fighting for and raising Adriana, we used Pampers. I mean they were, at the time, the best that we could tell. No blowouts, plenty of absorption… used the same with MY Spawn back in the day… they were the best…. Even G agrees and is majority surprised AF much as I am…. I mean BOTH of us used<\/em> to think Pampers were IT, end of story….

Like the Gold Standard<\/strong><\/em>

Now?
Notsomucho.
In fact they fucking suck<\/strong> IMO

Shocked the fuck out of both of us TBH
G is still<\/strong> having CogDis as Pampers, for BOTH of us, for ALL THREE Grans were the standard….

Now?
Yeeeeeeeeeah.
To give you an idea:

We had a bunch of Pampers that G had bought back before the whole ‘Incident’. Call it a case of size 3 (outgrown now), and two LARGE size 4 packs (like 60+ per) that we were<\/em> using. We planned on using them up until I hit CostCo.

Huggies were on sale… like a HUGE crate for short $$$ which is a major consideration. A LOT cheaper than Pampers… Now having been a “Pampers-for-Life” OG Diaper Dude so to speak, I figured we’d try them<\/em> and see how it worked out. For the cost savings alone donchaknow?

Let me tell you…
Pampers have gone waaaaaay downhill<\/strong>.<\/em>
When Muldoon fills one with pee, within a few minutes he gets ‘cranky’ and lets you know that the diaper is full and uncomfortable. The Huggies?

Not nary a pee-p LOL

Well, on BOTH diapers, WE can tell when they’re full, as the absorption gel swells up pretty obviously. Like you KNOW he’s got a ‘full load’ on board.

HOWEVER
He’s still ‘dry’ and NOT uncomfortable that I can tell when wearing a Huggie.
That’s a pretty big deal…
So…
I did a test.
Took 1\/2 a cup of water.
Dumped one into a Pamper.
One into a Huggie.

The Huggie felt ‘dryer’ than the Pamper on the inside, where it counts… which means it feels better for the baby I suppose.

No wet = good sleep.

YMMV, this’s just MY observations and get nothing out of this. It also means he’s been sleeping through the night on a Huggie, unless he’s hungry… a Pamper, not so much.

Which is more often than not<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Yeah… that be him two days ago…
5 months old
28 inches long now, 26 pounds
Let me say that again:
FIVE MONTHS AND 7 DAYS OLD<\/strong>

God, my future grocery bills are going to be fucking crazy<\/strong>!

So yeah, we’re doing well…

Funniest thing that happened during ONE of the inspections so far<\/em> was I forgot to clean up my ‘ready-mag’ stack on the breakfast counter in the kitchen.

Mind you, there’s no way<\/strong> a kid, never mind a baby, could ever<\/strong> reach these… these are my ‘strategic backups’ i.e. IF someone is stupid enough to try to rush the front door, and I have<\/em><\/strong> to retreat, I have a pretty heavy selection of loaded mags ready to go for rapid reloads for a variety of weapons…

Doesn’t everybody?

So the CPS Investigator, on her way out the door noticed them…

-I- (dumbass!) had overlooked them during my prep and ‘cleanup’ (i.e. stashing AAALL the weapons and long guns into the various lockers and safes in the house) I mean I overlooked them as well… I mean for real, they’re part and parcel of the house… it’s be like noticing the couch to me… normal and omnipresent…

Her reaction was “That’s a LOT of spare mags!!!!”

To which I said “Oh yeah! We came back from the range yesterday, and I forgot to put them up after we reloaded them!! My bad!”

She was cool with that.

Then again, when she was in the Museum of Mayhem, and I explained the collection, she was all like “What a cool collection! I assume all of the rifles on the wall are nonfiring?”

Me: “Uhhhh yeah… they’re all display rifles… that’s the ticket… yeah… display rifles.<\/strong>”

Then I showed her the Mauser ScouterGreg had sent me, the unfireable one that I had ‘corked’ the barrel with lead after restoring it, and that satisfied her… Thank the Good Lord she’s NOT an anti-gun witch like the one we had when we went through this with Addy… THAT dyke was a evil anti-gun trainwreck…

Tattooed, attitudinal, anti-male… Jeez… if there was ever<\/strong> a ‘check-box to deny a dad custody’ list, she was going to make sure I failed… sounds bad, but I’m thankful that corrupt fucking former-Judge in Tennessee (disbarred from what I know, it still <\/em>doesn’t mean he doesn’t owe me<\/strong> a lot<\/strong>) gave custody to the BabyDaddy

THAT fuck?
I’ll let your imaginations run wild
I have ALL his info
End Of Story.
Plus, I have alibis… seems he fucked over SO MANY PEOPLE I’d just be ‘another face in the crowd who wants him dead.’
That suits me jes’ fine’
Jes’ Sayin’
Anyways….

So yeah, the BD has actually been doing a great job with Addy, and we’ve had MULTIPLE vid-chats, and she is MAD excited to be an older sister… she also unfortunately, knows “Mommy is in Heaven”

Glad I didn’t have to have THAT convo… good on the BD for that… I’m proud of him actually… he’s stepped up, far more that I expected, but I also think he knows IF he fucks up, I’ll feed him into a wood chipper, feet first. Seriously tho, he’s doing great.<\/strong> I am<\/span> proud of him, and pray for the best. We have to meet up as he wants some of the ‘powdered bitch’ for Addy, so well, I’ll update as we go….

Anyways… so that’s the latest. I’ll try to better
Y’all deserve it. I’ll be ranting about the job hunt tomorrow if I get time. Until then
More Later
Big Country<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Greetings and Salutations!OK…Sorry for the absence\/AWOL status again!LOTS of ‘moving parts’ as of late… Child Protective Services inspections\/interviews(all passed with flying colors!) Legal Advisory teams helping with the Adoption(In progress) Job searches (HA!!!! Like I’m ever getting a job again in this fucking Hellscape Economy!) So needless to say, by the time “Blegg-Time” comes about, … Continue reading “So Busy… LOTS of “Imperial Entanglements” but We’re Winning!”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9637"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9637\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9662,"href":"https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9637\/revisions\/9662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigcountryexpat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}