Quiet can be a scary thing

Child rearing is filled with numerous moments of abject horror. From the moment when they handed me my first child and I couldn’t stop thinking I was going to drop him to major media reminding me daily that my children are about to be kidnapped by terrorists and made to do Un-American things in foreign lands, every moment is another second where I’m sure I or society at large is going to kill the kids. I’m a nervous wreck. And the kids aren’t helping.

As any stay-at-home parent with more than one child will tell you, a few seconds of peace and quiet is worth its weight in gold. But that same moment of quiet can be terrifying if it takes place when you are out of the room. My older two boys were at school and it was just Tiny Bits, our 18-month-old, and me hanging out. It’s nice to have some one-on-one time with the little guy; time where I can watch him grow, develop and even see his little mind working out how the world works. We had played the morning away, and it was time for a snack. Leaving him on the living room floor playing with his teddy bear, I ran to the kitchen to rustle up some chow.

I wasn’t worried about leaving him alone for a few minutes because he’s going through a “screaming phase,” one of the more “enjoyable” phases of development where children are learning vocal control — and therefore how to scream — quite happily, ALL THE TIME. Luckily this is something they grow out of pretty quickly (or they never do and grow up to be lead singers in heavy metal bands). In other words, I could hear him very well at the other end of our house. And that is why, as I was finishing chopping up his apple, I suddenly froze. I couldn’t hear the baby. The living room was quiet. A little too quiet.

My mind was awash with Wes Craven-fueled images as I ran around the couch to see exactly what he was doing. Had he turned the cat inside out? Had he suddenly figured out how to use the front door and was now out playing in traffic? Had he fallen into an interdimensional gate and now I would have to search the universe for him (that is exactly the kind of thing he would do)? No, he had discovered his toes. He was sitting on the floor, playing with toes. Apparently his toes can hear very well and don’t need to be screamed at. I, on the the other hand, am completely deaf since he looked up at me, saw the bowl of apple slices and happily screamed his head off.

This screaming phase had better stop soon or I’m going to start screaming soon myself.

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

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