Category Archives: Parenting Issues (i.e. Mistakes)

You are my sunshine, but not necessarily my only sunshine

“You are my sunshine,

my only sunshine (along with your brother, who is also my sunshine).

You (in concert with your brother) make me happy

when skies are gray . . .”

Since we’ve had our second child, we have been careful about the words to the little songs of endearment we sing to the baby. Not wanting to inspire jealousy by leaving the older sibling out, we do all we can to fit our high regard for everybody into the song.

This requires us to think on our feet, because few songs of endearment are intended to address multiple individuals. Imagine Roberta Flack singing, The First Time Ever I Saw Your Several Faces or Sinatra crooning that classic, It Had to be You. . . and That Other Guy Over There. It is probably for the best that most love songs focus upon a single individual, but this means that parents who need to spread the love around may have to cut and paste.

There is nothing so sweet and melodic as parents singing sweet nothings to their babies, except when the melody is held suspended by the insertion of clarifying, parenthetical phrases. These phrases must be added whenever Big Brother is within earshot. At his age, he gets fewer songs of his own. Therefore, he must be included as an addendum to his baby brother’s lullabies. This leads to verses like the one at the top.

We are lucky that our preschooler exhibits hardly any jealousy toward his baby brother. The big boy likes having a little brother. Our only worry about his attitude toward the baby is that he sometimes wants to hug his little brother too vigorously. He doesn’t quite understand how fragile a baby is. When he becomes most zealous to show affection for the baby, we stand guard, ready to prevent the reenactment of a scene from Of Mice and Men.

We are careful not to fritter away our good fortune. My wife often reminds me to avoid telling Big Brother that I can’t pay him immediate attention because I am tending to Little Brother. This could cause resentment. Instead, I have to make up excuses that sound something like, “I can’t play trains with you right now because I have to get all of the milk out of this bottle through this tiny hole. Luckily, your little brother is really good at this sort of thing. With his help, I’ll be done and ready to play with you by nightfall.”

My kids may grow up singing the wrong lyrics to many decades’ worth of popular (and unpopular) songs, and believing that babies take bottles to help rid their parents of troublesome milk surpluses, but I won’t laugh at them. As long as they like and respect each other, I’ll tolerate their crazy notions. To my boys, I will make every allowance for such misconceptions, because, as Debby Boone was fond of singing, “Y’all light up my life.”

Cowboy band

“But the Yellow Rose of Texas (and the Blue Marigold of West Virginia, and also the Purple Violet of Eastern Maryland) is the only gal for me.” (Photo: Russell Lee/U.S. Farm Security Administration)

 

Learning + play – learning = fun

I’m normally a very Do-It-Yourself oriented person. Before I consider paying somebody else for a service, I make every effort to do it myself. I have never needed surgery, but if I ever do, I will read all about it on the Internet to see if it is an operation I can knock out over the bathroom sink before I fork over a dollar to a “trained” surgeon.

As I pay a preschool big wads of money, in hopes that they can teach my son to read, or at least get him close, I wonder where my awesome self-reliance went. It is deflating to my rugged individualist ego to throw in the towel on this issue; nonetheless, the towel is wadded into a ball and my arm is cocked into pitching position.

I should be able to teach my own flesh and blood to read. To begin with, I can read myself, which is half the battle. I should be able to find the time, patience, and discipline to get him reading. It turns out, those things comprise the much larger half of the battle.

We need to train another reader to help me get through these books. The backlog has spread to shelves all over the house. This work is seriously cutting into my play time.

There are a surprising number of halves to this battle, most of them unconsidered during those callow days when I entertained glorious dreams of educating some future, theoretical child at my knee. Discovering all these extraneous halves has led me to the disappointing conclusion that I probably should not be the boy’s mathematics tutor either.

A considerable half of the battle is the one wherein the boy considers it a waste of his time to learn to do something that his parents can easily do for him. We have two experienced readers in the family,  leaving us with a spare, in case the one reading the bedtime story conks out. Surely, that is enough for any household. A child who learns to do things for himself opens himself up to the burden of unwanted responsibilities. Where does it end? Soon, they’ll be troubling him to tie his own shoes.

It may be an obvious half of the battle that the boy would rather play than work on academics. Learning is work, and so is teaching, which is perhaps part of the reason why we commonly pay people to do it. After the 100th time Daddy implores his distracted pupil to “sound it out,” it dawns upon him that he has already gone through the learning-to-read process once in his life. It was a slog then, and it’s a slog now. There’s no good reason to go through this drudgery twice in one lifetime. As the boy has pointed out, everybody could be using this time to play.

Reading is fundamental. I learned that from all the commercials I saw on TV as a kid.

This battle has at least 14 too many halves for Daddy. Mommy is much better at sticking to it, as well as getting the boy to stick to it. Mommy has laid a good foundation, but even Mommy’s diligence has its limits. It may be worth the money to have someone, whose credentials go beyond the mere ability to read, take a hand in the process. If nothing else, it is sure to take some of the guilt out of play time.

Cleanup on aisle two

This has gone beyond the point of coincidence. It’s beginning to feel like a conspiracy.

As soon as I finish making something to eat, one of the boys needs my assistance with a poop event. It doesn’t matter if it’s lunch, dinner, a snack, dessert, whatever. I’ve got my hands all washed up; I’ve got my food, hot and tempting, on the plate; and I’ve got a kid who can’t hold it for 10 minutes.

I use the broad term event because the poop assistance needs of a three-year-old and an infant are very different. The older boy can do most of it by himself, but it really isn’t going to matter until he can do all of it by himself. Until then, a hot lunch will have to always be a dream deferred.

In many ways, the three-year-old’s events are more disruptive to my meal plans. He really only needs me at the very end (unless he forgets his toddler potty seat), which means I’m on call for however long it takes him to speak those three little words that stir every parent’s heart: “Daddy, I’m done!”

Dinner is ready. Now who’s been waiting all day for this moment to go potty?

I really don’t want to start eating, knowing what I am likely to be called away to do halfway through the meal. I could just make him sit there and wait, but that seems like a cruel and unusual form of time out. It’s better to just delay eating, or maybe forget about it altogether.

If Big Brother doesn’t put me on standby, the baby is sure to pick up the slack. He announces his event by starting up his motorcycle. We call it that because it sounds like he’s revving up a Harley when he lets it rip. Big Brother thinks it’s hilarious. I think it means the salad dressing is going to make my lettuce get all soggy before I can taste it.

The baby’s poop events can be dealt with more quickly, unless he decides to enjoy an open-air pee in that free and wild moment between diapers, or he holds something back with which to christen the fresh diaper. Whenever he needs to quake out an aftershock, he always has the courtesy to wait until I’ve washed my hands once more before he hops back onto that motorcycle.

“Uh, excuse me, Daddy. You might want to put your fork down for this one. I’m gonna try to hit the high note here.”

These boys are so reliable in upsetting my meal plans that I begin to think I must be cursed. I’ve tried to comb through my past, searching for any incident that might have resulted in my insulting some sort of boom-boom gypsy. What offensive act might I have committed to inspire the potty time wizard to open up his book and cast spell number two? Did I cut in front of some sorcerer in the line for a porta-potty in my untamed youth? I don’t remember.

If you are out there, offended one who put this hex on me, please accept my humblest apology for whatever my crime, and let me once eat a hot meal with fresh air in my nostrils.

 

Please, please, please, don’t abuse the magic word

“Can I sit in the front seat?”

“No.”

“Can I drive?”

“No.”

“Please.”

“No.”

“I said a good word.”

“Yes, you did, and that was very nice of you. I appreciate it. But three-year-olds aren’t allowed to sit in the front seat or drive the car.”

Please is indeed a good word. It is a very polite and useful word. Also, I don’t blame the boy for dreaming big. If he’s going to ask to sit in the front seat, he might as well request to take the wheel.

Well, he did say please.

We all want our kids to learn to use nice words like please and thank you. We want them to know when and how to say excuse me and I’m sorry. Speaking of dreaming big, I have pipe dreams about my son learning to say sentences along these lines: “Daddy, I am truly humbled by the sacrifices you and Mommy have made in the name of my happiness.” (This one might be a long shot.)

Of all the words and phrases we want our kids to learn the habit of using, please is the trickiest. Please is a trap. It baits us into presenting it as the universal door-opener. How often do we hear an adult ask a child for the magic word? I’m sure I’ve made that mistake myself and I regret it.

Please is not a magic word. It is nice word, but it holds no more power than any of the other nice words. It only works when used by a reasonable person, making a reasonable request upon another reasonable person. Please won’t get a little boy into the front seat of the car. It won’t get him behind the wheel. It won’t get him cupcakes for dinner, and it won’t allow him to live in my house until he’s 40. None of these are reasonable requests, and there really are no magic words to make them so.

I don’t know how he got hold of a whole package of cookies. All I can figure is that he must have said pretty please.

My son doesn’t recognize please as a magic word when his parents use it. It is little more than the waste of a syllable when we use it on him in requests like these:

  • “Please eat your dinner.”
  • “Please don’t poke your baby brother to see if he’s asleep.”
  • “Please stop asking if you can drive the car.”

If there is a silver lining in his declining our polite requests it is that maybe he really can understand that getting the things you want in life takes a little more patience and effort than throwing around some magic word. Getting him to finish his dinner certainly does.

I’m trying hard to get away from please as a magic word. Magic is fun, and there is a place for it in a child’s world, but it is no substitute for respect, character, or kindness. To anyone who will show my kids examples of these traits, I say please and thank you.