Why can’t I take just one shower without the kids barging in?

I’ve never been someone who needed to be around lots of other people to feel comfortable. I’ve always enjoyed my alone time. Even if I was just lying on the couch reading a book while my wife was out with her friends on a girl’s night out, it was great to have the house to myself to just be myself. I knew having kids would change my life, but I had no idea how much my privacy would go out the window with the arrival of children. I assumed certain acts between mommy and daddy would have to be hidden from prying eyes, but sneaking around to get some kissy time with my spouse is just the beginning. There are a lot more basic needs that get interrupted by my offspring.

Just once I’d like to take a shower all by myself.

It’s not that I’m a prude but sometimes I just want to be alone in the bathroom. But kids just barge right in, like they own the place, regardless of what I’m doing in there. And our bathroom is small; it’s not like they can go play in the other wing of the bathroom while I shower. When they were really tiny I could wait until they were asleep and put them in their bouncy seat, put the seat in the bathroom and do a quick shower before they woke up. Then they started walking, that went out the window.

In the winter time it’s the worst: When the door flies open, all the carefully created steam making the bathroom into a comfortable womb goes rushing out of the room, and I freeze into a Popsicle in a second. Then the little head comes peeking around the shower curtain and looks up at me.

“Whatcha doing, Daddy?” I look down at him, covered in soap and shampoo, before answering.

“What does it look like I’m doing?”

“Taking a shower.”

“Yup, that’s what I’m doing. Can I help you?”

“Nope…” Then they exit just as quickly, leaving the door standing wide open. I swear, if I hadn’t been in the hospital room for their births, I would bet everything they had been born in a barn.

Our 18-month-old, Tiny Bits, is the worst. His brothers love bath time. Tiny Bits thinks bath time should be outlawed by the United Nations. When I’m taking a bath, he barges in — this must be genetic; my family must have barged into bathrooms all throughout history — and pulls the shower curtain back. Then the screaming in terror begins, much like when he is in the tub.

I know what some of you are saying: “Why don’t you just lock the bathroom door?” That only works if your definition of a relaxing shower includes three little fists banging on the door, crying because obviously Daddy is dying in the shower and they need to save me. I should feel loved, and I do, but I’d like wait until I’m dried off and dressed before I return that love.

Originally published on stltoday.com

Spring creates crazy kids; here’s help controlling them

Children are heavily affected by spring. As the days become longer and the weather warmer, the barely constrained craziness that had been building up all winter in their little bodies explodes out, and smart parents know to be on their guard to control their little hellions or face the consequences.

Kids’ physical energy is parents’ biggest challenge. During the long winter months, when the nights are long and the days are cold, no one has much energy. Even kids don’t want to go out in freezing weather. Well, after the first snow that is – they’re biting at the bit to get out the door once the the first big snow fall of the year hits but after a few hours of freezing, they’re through. The next day, playing a snowboarding video game in a warm living room looks like a lot more fun. Heavy comfort food and thick blankets make everyone lazy and happy to lie about and do nothing.

With parents, energy we didn’t use in winter turns to fat and we have to work very hard to release it. With kids, they store it somewhere magical, and they can tap a nearly endless supply at a moment’s notice. And when is that moment? The first warmish day of the year. And the worse thing? While they can tap the energy instantly, they can’t stop the flow once it’s pouring through them. This would be livable if the weather got warm and stayed warm but, of course, this is St. Louis so we get a warm day followed by a week of miserable weather. Those weeks of bad weather can test your parenting patience, but you can do a few things to help you through the dark times and have everyone make it alive and sane until the sun once again basks us in all its glory.

Exorcise the Ya-Ya Demons: The Ya-Ya Demons will dig their evil claws into your beautiful, prefect child and turn him or her into a crazed beast from the dark recesses of your worse nightmares. One moment your kid is hanging out, being fairly normal and the next they are jumping off the couch a dozen times in a row while scream-singing songs they don’t know the lyrics to. Oh, the fun. In a situation like this, your only choice is to get the energy out of the kid ASAP. If it isn’t horribly cold or raining, take them outside, get them to walk around the block with you, say hello to your neighbors and help them with their numbers by counting how many houses on each street are for sale. If it is horrible out, get to the Science Center, the City Museum or even your local mall if it has a indoor play area; any place where kids are encouraged to run and jump up and down will work. Work them into a frenzy, tucker them out and, if you’re lucky, they’ll be passed out in the car seat before you get halfway home. This, of course, makes utilization of every halfway nice day a must. If it’s sunny out, get your kid out of the house. Walk to a park and make them play, kick a soccer ball around the back yard, anything to get them to move. Because if you let them sit, the energy they aren’t using will be stored up and will bubble out of them sooner or later, regardless if the weather is nice or not.

Get their mind moving: Anyone who remembers school will testify to the tiring effects of studying and using their minds a great deal. This is another way to get your kid tired on those days when you can’t get them out of the house. The trick is to get them involved in something intellectual before the Ya-Ya Demons attack. This doesn’t have to be discussing 19th century German philosophy or ranking the highlights of the Fillmore administration; it can be as simple as a board game or coloring. The idea is to get them concentrating on an activity and get them to focus their boundless energy there before it builds up and attacks you with screaming, running around like crazy people and missung song lyrics.

These are two ideas to help you with your crazy kids. Just remember it isn’t their fault they can’t control themselves, it’s just this time of year. So, you’ll get to do this all again next year. There, doesn’t that make you feel better?

Originally published on stltoday.com

Getting kids to help with yardwork … what’s the worst that can happen?

Earlier this year we had a tree fall down in our back yard, and there it sat, killing my grass and being an embarrassment to our entire family. Well, by “grass” I mean the motley menagerie of crab grass, vines and vicious weeds that has taken over our back yard and by “embarrassment” I mean embarrassment.  It was cold, and I didn’t feel like freezing to death to chop it up and drag it to the yard waste Dumpsters in the alley. And although this isn’t something I look forward to — hanging out in the yard, fighting off pollen and bugs, getting sweaty and sunburned — I would have help: my two oldest boys.

Because they are small and not particularly strong, I figured I could get them to pick up the infinite amount of tiny sticks on the ground while I took care of the big limbs of the tree. All they would have to do is pick up armloads of sticks and take them to the Dumpster right behind our house. What’s the worst thing that could happen?

“What’s the worst thing that could happen?” is something I used to say ironically in situations where it was obvious everything could go wrong. Now I’m a parent, and this is a phrase that goes through my head multiple times a day, and I treat it very seriously.

First: At 6 and 4 years old, my boys see all things long, slender things as swords, so I knew I would have to watch them closely for fencing competitions to break out.

Second: Some of the sticks are sharp and what does every mom say almost constantly: “It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye.” The boys would have to be out of my sight for almost three seconds to go from the yard to the Dumpster. That’s 2.9 seconds longer than it would take to poke out all four of their eyes.

Third: I’ve been in situations like this, and I know exactly how this was going to go.

I’ve made the mistake of getting the boys to “help” in cleaning the house and to call the experience “frustrating” is laughably naive. You would think getting people to help you clean up one room of a house would make it go faster. This is not the case, at least with my little ones. Every toy has to be examined and played with. Which wouldn’t be bad as they would, ultimately, get the toys all picked up and I would be free to sweep, dust and organize all the things in the house that are out of place. But although they pick up the toy and examine it, they tend to just throw it back on the ground when they come to another toy; getting the toys into a toy chest or even just a bucket or box takes hours and the end of which I still have to clean up after them.

The best I could hope for was for all the sticks to be simply moved around the yard; the worst, having two newly blind children. So  I entered the yard alone, leaving the boys to hang out in the front yard with my wife, pulling weeds and preparing the yard for planting. Maybe she’ll be able to get them excited about lawn care. Or maybe I’ll go to the front yard at the end of the day and they would have pulled up all “the green things” and the front of our house will look as barren as our back yard. Either way, I’m sure they’ll have fun.

Originally published on stltoday.com

Does my baby see through walls? Cool.

Desperate for spring air, we opened the window in our bedroom the other night, despite the calls for the Storm of the Century of the Week to come through town and kill us all again. I fell asleep quite happily with lungs filled with fresh air and awoke to the sound of the rain — a gentle rain pitter-pattering on the awning above our window. The only number my horrible eyesight could make out on the clock was 4, but I didn’t need the clock, it just felt unnecessarily early. I’d been awake for almost five minutes when the first noises came filtering in from our boys’ room.

It was a whiny-moan, and I could tell it was Tiny Bits, our 18-month-old. He’s woken me up in the middle of the night enough times for me to recognize his cry anywhere. It wasn’t a nightmare-induced scream, but the moan of a little boy only half awake and (hopefully) about to go back to sleep. I lay in bed, waiting for a full-throated bellow to come, but he stayed silent. I tried to go back to sleep, the gentle rain my soundtrack.

A sudden intensification of the storm got my eyes opened once more, and Tiny Bits started whining again. I waited, seeing if he would calm himself down, but this one sounded real. I slipped my glasses on and started to get up. Suddenly the sounds from the Bits’ room ceased. The storm had also settled down and everything seemed right with the world again. I went to put my glasses back on the nightstand and try to get back to sleep, but the moment my glasses hit the table, there came another half-hearted moan from the other room.

Figuring, surely, he has got to be up now, I slipped my glasses back on and started to get out of bed. But, once again, there was silence. Not wanting to risk actually waking a 75 percent sleeping baby, I lay back down and took my glasses off again. And as soon as my glasses hit the wood of the table, there was a cry from the other room. Glasses on, no crying. Glasses off, weak moaning and crying.

Surely he couldn’t hear my glasses hitting the wood when I laid them down; I couldn’t hear them. Just to be sure, I laid them down on a paperback book; instant moaning-whining. Was I on Candid Camera or what? He either had me on closed circuit TV or he could see through walls. OH MY GOODNESS, HE CAN SEE THROUGH WALLS! This is awesome, my son is a mutant from The X-Men! I am the coolest geek dad in the world.

I tried an experiment: I lay down with my glasses on and tried to think of who would play me in the movie Tiny Bits: The Real Weapon X. Sure enough, not another peep was heard that night.  I just slept with my glasses on.

The next morning, everything seemed normal: Tiny Bits couldn’t see through walls (nor did he seem to have extra acute hearing — he went on ignoring me just as well as he always does), I couldn’t find a hidden camera in my room, and Allen Funt didn’t jump out of my bathroom and say “Smile, you’re on Candid Camera!” “The Great Baby Sleeping Weirdness” would have to go down in history with all the great unsolved mysteries: The Bermuda Triangle, Loch Ness and how anyone makes it through middle school alive.

We could solve them, but do we really want to? Somethings humans just aren’t ready to know yet.

Originally published on stltoday.com