Tag Archives: parenting

All the daddies do it

It’s that time of year again. It’s the height of the season when parents use Santa Claus leverage to pry good behavior from their children. But I would never hijack a beloved icon to extort good behavior from my kids.

Like hell I wouldn’t. I clobber them over the heads with Santa.

“Santa won’t want to come here if these toys aren’t picked up.”

“Santa looks unfavorably upon little boys who won’t be quiet when Daddy’s watching the game.”

“Santa this; Santa that.” It’s all Santa, all the time. Sometimes it even works. Sort of.

the empty chimney of sub-par behavior

A watched pot never boils, especially when the watcher made noise all through Monday Night Football.

Santa’s pulled a lot of weight around our house when it comes to keeping kids in line, even without the help of that creepy Elf on the Shelf, who has yet to prove he’s officially sanctioned by Santa.

Eventually, Santa will abandon us, and then I don’t know where we’ll be. I can only hope he will have done well enough raising our children that we can take over without a large drop off in behavior or, more importantly, convenience.

But Santa is not the only force of manipulation in our house. Lately, Buster has discovered a new force he’s sure should persuade me to do what he asks.

If I tell him I won’t give him a bowl of gummy bears for breakfast, he looks up at me with big, sincere eyes and tells me. “All the daddies do it.”

I say, “No. Daddies don’t give their children gummy bears for breakfast.”

He gives me a what-rock-have-you-been-living-under? look and insists, “Yes they do. All the daddies.”

The motion is passed. The Council of Daddies decrees that, henceforth, all daddies will do it.

The motion is passed. The Council of Daddies decrees that, henceforth, all the daddies will do it.

I’m not sure where he learned about peer pressure, or how he found out what all the daddies are doing these days, but it worked out for him that they are all doing just the sorts of things he would appreciate. Sadly, the only daddy who is out of step with the times is his own. What a rotten luck of the draw.

Lest you think parental peer pressure is reserved for daddies, I have overheard him play the all-the-mommies card as well. Apparently, all the mommies have joined all the daddies in opening up a world of limitless sugar and playing ball in the house to little boys.

It frustrates him that his parents have not joined, or even been invited to, the revolution. But we are older than most parents of three-year-olds, and not very hip. We’re stuck in the old ways. We think he should get his morning dose of sugar from someone we trust, like Cap’n Crunch, not from a fly-by-night mob of nameless bears.

This doesn’t stop him from using the new thinking of all the daddies and mommies to try to influence our parenting. Likewise, a reminder that Santa is watching only keeps him on the straight and narrow for about a minute, but that doesn’t stop me from going to the Santa well at every opportunity.

In either case, you’ve got to do the best you can with the tools you have.

We’re trying to respect your personal space, Santa

I wanted to take Buster to the Home Depot kids’ workshop, but he threw a wrench at our Saturday morning by refusing to potty. Despite both Mommy’s and Daddy’s coaxing, he was adamant; his three-year-old bladder is tough, even after 10 hours of sleep. He usually sticks to his guns on such matters, but a few minutes later he conceded. “Daddy,” he said, hopping from one leg to the other, “You wight [right]. Mommy wight [right], too. I gotta go potty.” Even in urgent moments, he gives credit where credit is due.

Confident our building project wouldn’t be interrupted by a sudden Men’s Room steeple chase through Home Depot, we set out.

We encountered  an acquaintance sitting in a chair outside the kids’ workshop area. It was an awkward moment, because we weren’t expecting to see him and he didn’t seem to remember us. But Santa meets so many people he can be forgiven for not recognizing us right off. To mitigate the awkwardness, we quickly claimed our kit and set to work.

Meanwhile, Santa, who was on the young side, and planned to spend his day helping customers find pipe fittings when his manager handed him red suit, sat sheepishly in his chair, counting the moments until he could don the more comfortable orange apron.

poor Santa

Santa’s unease with children made more sense when we learned that his father was fatally mauled by a wild band of them. 

As Santa stewed in his regret over having drawn the short straw, we set to work building our blocks on a dowel stuck into a wooden base thingy. Buster is getting good with a hammer, which would be all good news if he were 12; for a preschooler it still has the potential to be a mixed blessing. We only made one mistake this time – an improvement for manly men like Buster and me who don’t need no stinking instructions.

On the way out, we passed Santa again. Hoping to lend some value to his time served beside these terrifying little people, I asked Buster to tell Santa what he wants for Christmas. Neither Buster nor Santa appeared keen on the proposed interaction, but I had refrained from any talk about sitting on laps, so neither fled screaming down the aisle.

Meanwhile, Busters unease with Santa is based on half-truths and misrepresentations.

Meanwhile, Buster’s unease with Santa is based on half-truths and misrepresentations.

At length, Buster whispered, “You tell him.” Santa’s eyes agreed this would be best.

“What do you want?” I asked Buster.

Buster leaned in so Santa couldn’t hear. “Star Wars LEGOs.”

I relayed the message. Santa stared at me for a while. Then, in a moment of inspiration, he replied, “Um, I’ll see what I can do.”

We left Santa to serve out his sentence as best he might and went home. Hours later, as darkness fell, Buster approached me with a sad face. “Star Wars LEGOs not coming,” he lamented. I explained that Santa didn’t come until Christmas, which must be some days away since we didn’t have a tree yet.

Buster was assuaged, but now I’m on the hook for Star Wars LEGOs. It’s one thing that they’re an expensive toy, but Buster’s hammering skills won’t build LEGOs. Guess how I’ll be spending Christmas.

A toddler for all seasons

I’ve spent some time here talking about how destructive Big Man can be. (If you didn’t know better, you might even have thought it was complaining.) It’s only fair I spend some time explaining how helpful Big Man can be. He’s a multi-faceted boy – a toddler for all seasons.

While it’s true that Big Man has spilled his share of juice and other sticky foods on the floor, he often makes a good faith effort to clean up after himself. He goes to the drawer of washcloths we keep for handling sticky boys, retrieves a dry cloth, and fervently attacks the spill. In fact, he mops his spill to an area of carpet twice the size of the original mess. Then, he dutifully returns the sticky cloth to the drawer, because that’s where it goes, and a boy should always put things back where he found them.

Even in his younger days, he was quick to lend a hand with the cleaning.

Even in his younger days, he was quick to lend a hand with the cleaning.

Big Man likes to alert his parents when the phone rings. He points at the phone and gives his distinctive alarm, “Dada! Dada!” If you make no move to answer it, because it’s a telemarketer, or more likely, you’ve forgotten what to do when the phone rings, he will climb up the chair and retrieve it for you, making every effort to press the TALK button before you get to him. He lives in undying hope he will eventually retrain you as to the appropriate actions to take in the face of a ringing phone.

Big Man likes to be sure Mommy and Daddy are fed on time. To that end, he reacts definitively to the microwave beeper. He is just tall enough to reach the button that pops open the door and stops the machine. He punches this button before the beeper has stopped sounding. Sometimes he punches it before the beeper has started, because Daddy is just too hungry to wait all that while for hot food when mostly thawed will do.

speed dial

Helping Buster order a pizza. He only messes around with toy phones when he’s humoring the children.

Big Man is in tune with sounds and their meanings. He knows the sound of the garage door opener likely means an absent parent has returned to the nest. He draws everyone’s attention to the sound with his “Dada! Dada!” warning. Even when the sound of the garage door opening means he’s found the spare opener remote and is pushing newly discovered buttons, he calls his family to investigate, because maybe, just maybe, he’s found a magic little box that brings sweet Mommy home whenever you push the button. Somebody tall enough to turn the door knob should go look in the garage to see how well this magic works.

It may have been disappointing to learn the garage door remote button didn’t bring Mommy home, but he soon got over it. After all, he’d found another button that made a distant yet familiar noise. That’s a good thing. When you are a toddler, people flood your world with impotent, toy buttons. Any day you discover a button whose pushing yields real world results is a good day.

A boy’s recipe for toast and good will

Whenever my wife has to work a morning shift, I go in to work late so I can take the boys to school. I don’t look forward to these mornings for many reasons. For one thing, I am using up my vacation time on something that is anything but a vacation. Also, none of the men in our household are famous for being morning people. The most infamous non-morning person is Big Brother.

It can be quite a struggle to get this sleepy 2nd grader out of bed and into his morning routine. But the last time this duty fell to me, he woke up by himself at the same time I did. This was a pleasant surprise, and it was only the beginning of his pleasantness.

As I was showering, a young voice was directed at me from beyond the shower curtain. “Daddy?”

“Yes?”

“I think I’ve done all my responsibilities. I got dressed and brushed my teeth. I made my bed and I got out the ingredients for toast.”

soon to be toast

Sorry, Soft ‘N Good bear. You’re about to be toast.

Dressing, brushing his teeth, and making his bed are all elements of the morning routine expected of him, but, to my knowledge, he has not been asked to help make toast. That he made his bed without being reminded was a good start, but getting out the ingredients for toast proved he was reaching above and beyond. He was spreading helpfulness around like sweet frosting on the cake of good behavior.

It was obvious which cake he was trying to frost. Since he woke up early, he figured why not try to get some screen time in before school. And what better way to get permission to play than to act like you’ve earned it?

“So, can I play on the Kindle?” he asked.

Just the fact that I didn’t have to drag him out of bed made it worth letting him play, but I wasn’t going to act like a total pushover. “Did you turn off your fan?” Everyone loves the white noise at night.

His answer was to leave the bathroom. Ten seconds later, he was back. “I turned off the fan. So can I play?”

“Okay. But just until your toast is ready.”

“I’m not making the toast,” he clarified. “I just got out the ingredients to make it, except the butter. I couldn’t find any butter.”

So, in other words, he got out the bread. But he couldn’t just say he got out the bread. It sounds much more impressive when you get out the ingredients to make toast, all of them except for one.

Hello, butter!

Sometimes you’ve got to open two refrigerator doors to find precious butter.

Usually, I prefer an economy of words, but I’m glad he chose to get out the ingredients for toast, minus the butter, rather than just getting out the bread. It tickled me, which probably made me more likely to let him play on the Kindle.

But then I bet he had taken all that into consideration already.

Happy Thanksgiving! Here’s hoping you find all the ingredients for your Turkey Day toast.