Boys will fight over anything, even an imaginary ball

You never know when major life events will happen to you. One moment you are trying to wrangle the family into the car for an outing and the next moment you are standing there, dumbfounded, experiencing something you know you will remember forever. Just this weekend I had one of those moments.

It was a beautiful Saturday and after endless weeks of rain we were all champing at the bit to get out of the house. We spent the morning down at the local cafe, eating a hearty breakfast and wasting time with friends. The kids had spent time at the park, running and jumping and expending most of the calories they had eaten at breakfast. This always does one of two things to them: wears them out so all they want to do is lie on the couch and stare at the TV or winds them up to a pitched frenzy whose energy is only equaled by supernovas. There is no rhyme or reason to this, and trying to predict how they will react to “park time” is a fool’s errand. I knew my best bet was to throw them into the car for a quick trip across town. If they’re turning into zombies the car ride will put them to sleep, and if they’re running wild they could run around the mall or a big box store out in the county.

First, though, I’d have to clean out the car. My poor car is a largeish station wagon, but it’s filled with car seats and there isn’t much room in it other than the front passenger seat. It gets filled with diaper bags, jackets, empty chip bags and bottles of soda. This is not a big deal during the week when it’s just me, but my wife has no place to sit and it seems weird to have her follow us in her car when we go on family trips. So as I carried junk into the house, my wife stayed out on the sidewalk to let the kids play in the sun. Tiny Bits, our 18-month-old, found a stick and was going around blessing and/or whacking every plant he could get close to. Maybe he thinks he’s a wizard and the stick is a wand; who knows — he was happy and that’s all that matters. Our other two boys — 6-year-old Big Bits and 4-year-old Little Bits-decided the thousand and one toys we have in the house (and the several in the car) were unnecessary and were playing Invisible Football.

Invisible Football is a simple game: you take an invisible football and “throw” it to your brother, who “catches” it and then begins to run down the sidewalk, avoiding “tacklers” until they come to the “end zone” where they score a touchdown and “spike the ball.” It’s actually fun to watch and appears to be fun to play. Regardless, they were having fun and staying out of my way as I hauled miscellaneous debris into the house.

I was coming out of the front door for the last time when I heard screaming. I could see Little Bits standing a few doors down, crying. Big Bits was throwing a tantrum. Tiny Bits was happily whacking away at a hosta in our front yard. My wife was trying very hard not to laugh at something.

“What happened?” I asked as I came up to them.

“MOMMY IS SO MEAN!” Big Bits told me.

“Big Bits is … hogging the ball,” my wife tried to say through giggles. “I told him he had to share the ball and he threw a fit.”

“It’s not fair!” Big Bits told me. I was confused.

“Can’t they both have a ‘ball’?” I asked. My wife just shrugged.

“I tried and Little Bits said he wanted the one Big Bits has,” she told me. I just shook my head.

“OK, Big Bits, give Little Bits the ball. It’s only fair,” I told him. Big Bits wasn’t happy, but he seemed to see he had been out voted.

Then the most surreal thing I had ever seen took place.

“You aren’t my best friend anymore!” he said as he bent down, “picked” up the “ball” and “threw” it to his brother before stomping off into the car. Little Bits “watched” the “ball” go over his head and turned to run to where it “landed,” “picked” it up and brought it back to us, now happy enough to stop crying. My wife and I got all the kids into the car and stopped before getting in to look at one another.

“Did that just happen?” I asked.

“Yes, our sons just fought over an imaginary football,” she answered before we both broke out in laughter.

At least they have good imaginations. Now, to see if a good imagination helps them in life or just drives me insane.

Originally published on Stltoday.com

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

Everything I needed to know about kids, I learned from taking care of drunks in college

I learned a lot of things in my five years of college: how my body reacts to seven cups of coffee after being awake for two days straight, how to write five pages of semi coherent babble and still sound like I had actually read the book and how to look like I knew what I was doing while playing pool (I think I also took some English classes). But as I became a parent I realized I also learned a lot about raising children. Not from any early childhood development classes; I learned a lot by taking care of drunks.

I didn’t drink while in college (I got all my drinking out of the way in high school like a good American). Because  I was sober, I was always the designated driver, or because we usually partied at friends’ houses, I was everyone’s mom, taking care of puking twentysomethings. Oh, it was a good time: holding people up so they could empty their stomachs into the toilet or breaking up fights  — alcohol makes parties so much “fun.” And when I wasn’t doing that, I was bouncing concerts. Not that I’m a big, tough guy: I’m just a big guy. My job was to stand by the front door of the club, be bigger than everyone else and be on the lookout for the police. This was another job where I got to deal with drunks, although I didn’t know many of them so it was much easier to just shove them out the door if they were going to blow chunks or start a fight.

So I had five years’ experience with drunks and now I’ve had more than six years’ experience with kids, and I can tell you there are many similarities between the two.

Although belligerent, they are easy to please: A drunk friend will yell all night until he gets a bottle of beer; a baby will cry all night until he gets a bottle of milk. Basically if you can just get them what they want quickly, a drunk or a baby will be very happy and will show you great affection for your trouble; the baby will snuggle with you and the drunk will say, “I love you, man!” right before he passes out in the bath tub. One difference: your baby will rarely wake up in the middle of the night and demand you take him to the convenience store to get a microwaved barbecue pork sandwich.

Their violence is easy to avoid: As toddlers grow up, they start to establish their independence and many times that means they will lash out at their parents. Hitting, biting and scratching are common, as are screaming, temper tantrums and even literally shaking with rage. This is a phase all kids go through, and, if handled with compassion and patience, one that will pass with time. Plus, if they do hit you, they’re tiny, and it really doesn’t hurt. Drunks do the same things but that’s because they’re ignorant drunks. They can be handled with violence but mostly just talking to them will calm them down, and you might even get a drunken, smelly hug out of it. Plus, they have terrible aim and you can easily sidestep their wild, roundhouse punches.

Oh, the smells you will smell: Babies stink … bad. People who go on and on about “new baby smell” don’t hang around long enough to really sniff the horrors that can come out of a child. No matter what end of the baby you are talking about, smelly things come flying out of babies on a daily basis. And then there are the things related to babies that smell: highly fragranced baby wipes, plastic toys impregnated with fake fruit scents and the dreaded milk bottle found under the front seat of the car after a week in the August sun. But I was ready for this because of my college days dealing with drinking adults. Drunks just reek of alcohol and puke (which is bad enough) but in this case there is a difference in how you deal with them: Children you clean up and put into new clothes and lovingly hold them if they’re feeling under the weather; with drunks, you help them through the actual puking part so they don’t die then you put them to bed fully clothed and let them deal with their own mess in the morning.

I’m sure I learned other things about dealing with kids in college but, as with most things I learned in college, it was the good (and bad) times spent with friends that have stuck with me and now seem the most important.

Originally published on stltoday.com

Want to stop a child in his tracks? Use the Dad Voice

In the Great Parent/Child War, fathers are given very few weapons (Moms have all kinds of weapons and go into battle ready for anything … at least they seem to). We are thrown into battle with our bundles of joy with little or no knowledge, few real skills and an overpowering fear our every move will result in permanent damage to the child. We think we know what we’re doing but no matter how many little siblings we had or kids we’ve babysat, we are still naked and alone against the great forces of babyhood. Luckily for us dads out there, the weapon we do have is a powerful one; one kids all over the world are powerless against: the Dad Voice.

The Dad Voice is something only fathers have. Mothers don’t have it and even nonfather men can’t seem to get the right inflection to pull off the Dad Voice, a perfect combination of righteous rage and incredulity that tells children immediately they have been caught doing something they shouldn’t be. It doesn’t have to be a shout — it works better when it is said in a voice that is just a little louder than your normal speaking voice — but it can make a kid change his behavior faster than screaming at him all day long could ever do.

I can still remember the first time I used the voice. Big Bits, our now 6-year-old, was just 18 months or so and we were sitting on the couch after cleaning the living room. I left for the kitchen to get a celebratory snack and when I came back a moment later he had climbed off the couch and was digging into his box of wooden blocks, throwing them over his shoulder one at a time and making a giant mess. I stopped at the couch and couldn’t believe my eyes: there was my Little Buddy wrecking our just cleaned room. “What are you doing?!” I said in a voice that made me jump a little and made my poor child spring up, turn around and start crying, wooden block still in hand. I felt so bad I picked him up and we snuggled on the couch for a bit before we went back to work cleaning up his mess.

This voice works on all kids, not just your own. Our middle child goes to a cooperative preschool where I’m the teacher helper once a month. Mostly this involves herding the kids around the preschool and providing the snack for the day. I also help police the children during gym and one day I spied a child going to every kid in the class and pushing them down. Without thinking about it, I invoked the Dad Voice, and he stopped in mid push and spun his head around so fast I thought he might have whiplash. We locked eyes from across the gym and, without another word,  he knew exactly what he had done wrong and stopped. He also gave me a wide berth for the rest of the day.

And the “kids” don’t have to be young either. Or even see you. A friend and I went to the movies this winter to see the latest sci-fi/action epic (quick review: meh). As the theater filled, several teenagers took seats in the very front and started talking loudly. I didn’t care as the only thing on the screen was commercials but as the film started they only got louder. Out came my Dad Voice, a bit louder than I would use with my own boys, but these kids were older and needed more “intense” help to correct their behavior. One “SHUT UP!” was all it took to get the kids to settle down and enjoy the film like they were real human beings. My friend congratulated me on my Dad Voice, and the people next to us even shook my hand after the movie was over. To be fair, the people who shook my hand were  —  how do I put this gently? — “weirdos” but it was nice to see others appreciated my Dad Voice as well.

The Dad Voice: Don’t leave home without it. And it’s best to have it at home as well.

Originally published on stltoday.com