In a recent post, I complained that my kids don’t watch enough television.? Well, it doesn’t happen often, but today we managed to get all three to watch at the same time.? They held this position for only 15 or 20 minutes, but it was great while it lasted.
Yes, you read that right. I want my kids to watch more TV. I’d like them to sit, quietly, for about an hour and give SuburbanDaddy a few minutes to rest.
I tried to have “movie time” on both days this weekend. On Saturday I built up the idea of watching Finding Nemo, a movie my kids have seen (at least short sections of it). They already know all the characters thanks to product marketing. We barely got past the previews when Thing 1 started asking for the shark part, and Thing 2 was jumping across the couches. Movie time over.
Sunday I tried again with Toy Story. This time, we set up in the basement. We pulled out the sleeping bag and turned off the lights. Both kids had skipped their naps so they were primed for movie watching. If the amount of time they devote to talking about it is any indication, they love Toy Story. They know all the characters and have seen enough to know what it is about. This time, ten minutes into the movie, after ten minutes of fighting over who sits where, and who gets which pillow, they start wandering off to play with trains.
No problem. They are playing nicely (read: not fighting) so I can turn on the football game instead. Ah, if only it were that easy. Thing 1 and Thing 2 have no interest in watching TV, until they see I have an interest, and then they stop everything else and demand to watch. If only they were interested in football. What would you like to watch? I ask them. Toy Story of course. Everyone gets back into the sleeping bags, lights off, movie back on. The bliss lasts just four minutes this time and we’re back to where we started.
Why won’t my kids watch TV? When I was a kid, TV was a marvel. I was happy to watch whatever I could. And the shows were crappy and had commercials, and I had to wait until they were scheduled to be on. No DVR. No on demand. Just a few channels. No remote. And I still watched!
Once in a while…and it isn’t very often…I actually think I’ve got this parenting thing under control. I’ll be out with one or more kids, and get an almost out of body experience, where I can see myself and think wow, that guy makes it look so easy.
I had Thing 2 and Thing 3 (toddler and infant) to myself one evening after picking them up at daycare, so I decided rather than go home as usual, we’d stop at a new pizza place for dinner. Thing 3 usually sleeps in his car carrier, and Thing 2 loves to eat.? How hard could it be?
There was a long line to order food. Thing 2 started to wander off. My arm was about to fall off from holding the baby carrier. We ordered a slice of pizza and a sandwich and found an empty table. When I went back to the counter to get the drinks, and Thing 2 couldn’t see me anymore, he started crying and everyone was staring at the dad who looked to be in way over his head. Then Thing 3 woke up and needed a bottle. Why didn’t I just go to McDonald’s drive through?
But then everything seemed to line up perfectly into place. Thing 2 was happily eating his pizza and asking a hundred questions. I was eating my sandwich with one hand, feeding Thing 3 a bottle with the other, and keeping the toddler’s attention at the table, all while watching the Yankee playoff game on the flat screen TV on the wall!
This is where the out of body experience happens, where I can see the same strangers that were glaring at me earlier, now looking in awe at the dad who has it all under control. Or maybe they were looking at the mess of cheese Thing 2 had assembled under his chair and was now stepping on, or the baby spit up running down my shoulder. No matter, at least for a few moments, I was making it look easy.
Another dad sings about “all the crying and the whining” that’s part of putting kids to bed. I couldn’t have said it any better…
It started as a normal Saturday. The usual weekend errands and activities. Then, it was as if all the forces aligned to form the Perfect Storm, or in this case, the Perfect Four Year Old Meltdown.
Around 5:30pm, Thing 1 got into a scuffle over a toy with his brother, Thing 2. Again, nothing new here. Except this time, after I took the toy away, Thing 1 expressed his anger by peeing in front of me, soaking his pants and creating a puddle on the floor. There were previous incidents where he had “intentional accidents” to get our attention. But he had never been so bold as to look at me while he was doing it! The test of wills had begun.
He was immediately sent to his room to change his clothes and stay there until I finished feeding Thing 3. It was pretty quiet for the next 20 minutes so I was prepared to go up to his room for “the talk”. Getting angry = OK. Peeing on the floor because you are angry = not OK. But when I went into his room, he had pulled all the sheets off his bed, and the mattress was wet. The conversation went like this:
SuburbanDaddy: “What happened to your bed?”
Thing 1: “I took the sheets off because it was wet.”
SuburbanDaddy: “How did it get wet?”
Thing 1: “Somebody poured water on it.”
SuburbanDaddy: “No. You peed on it.”
Thing 1: “No I didn’t. It wasn’t me.”
At not quite 4 years old, this was a nice display of imagination and storytelling, except it was a blatant lie. And, he had just intentionally peed on his own bed. It’s hard to see the silver lining in that one.
Instead of “the talk”, I told him he was to stay in his room until the morning. No dinner. No story time. No television. Thing 1 was NOT happy with this turn of events. He tried to get out of his room, but each time he opened the door, I was standing there to put him back in. This went on for some time. Once he saw this strategy was not working, he stopped opening the door. SuburbanDaddy had won! At last I could eat dinner. Or so I thought…
We heard some loud noises upstairs. Thing 1 had dumped all the books and clothes out of his dresser and closet, and spread them all over his room. SuburbanDaddy was NOT happy with this turn of events. I took the clothes and books and removed them from his room. To prevent him from leaving his room I held the doorknob shut. The kicking and screaming intensified, then calmed down again. Some more strange noises. I opened the door and found he had pulled the mattress and box spring across the room. So, I removed the entire bed from his room. Each time he threw something, I would calmly remove it from the room. Garbage can, night lights, toys, pull ups, you name it.
After two hours of this I realized my son is very, very stubborn. I also realized where he gets it from. After all, SuburbanDaddy was perfectly happy to keep doing this all night, and remove every last item from his bedroom, if necessary, until there was nothing but four walls left.
So how did it end? Who won the test of wills? I’m not sure anyone did, but I’m sure it would still be going on if SuburbanMommy hadn’t intervened. Playing good cop to my bad cop, she was able to get him to calm down and agree to go to sleep. It looked like the night was finally over, but then Thing 1 got really sad.
SuburbanMommy: What’s wrong? Don’t you want to go to sleep?
Thing 1 [on the verge of tears]: I do want to. But I don’t have a bed anymore!
Since the arrival of Thing 3 about two months ago, I have developed a bit of a split personality. Day SuburbanDaddy is the guy that gets up around 5am, gets the kids dressed and fed before rushing them off to preschool, then goes to work, followed by a final flurry of dinner-bath-bedtime. Night SuburbanDaddy is the one that comes out once the kids are finally asleep, hopefully by 8:30pm, and enjoys the relative quiet until the cycle repeats starting at 5am.
Day Daddy eats meals in 12 seconds, standing up, over the sink, while Things 1,2,3 are screaming, fighting, crying, or breaking stuff. Night Daddy sips a glass of wine and catches up on the day’s events, while quietly waiting for dinner to cook.
Day Daddy must maintain a steady flow of caffeine while at work to prevent falling asleep with his head on the keyboard. Night Daddy enjoys a bowl of ice cream every night before going to sleep.
Day Daddy is the responsible one. If there were no Night Daddy, Day would go to bed as soon as the kids were asleep, so the next day he wouldn’t be as sleep deprived. But Night Daddy doesn’t care how tired Day Daddy will be the next day. It’s not his problem. Night Daddy wants to enjoy a couple hours of free time. Watch a football game that goes well past midnight. Drink some wine. After all, why should Night Daddy cut short his fun?
Night Daddy has enormous power over Day Daddy’s life. The later Night stays up, and the more he drinks, the harder it is for Day in the morning. The power, though, is completely lopsided. There is almost nothing Day Daddy can do to ruin Night Daddy’s existence.
One way Day Daddy has tried to stop Night Daddy is by giving the kids lots and lots of chocolate after dinner. He figured that the kids wouldn’t go to bed until much later than 8:30, so Night Daddy wouldn’t get his usual time. But the plan backfired. Night Daddy said Screw You Day Daddy, and just stayed up later, causing Day Daddy even more trouble the next day because the kids had half a night’s sleep.
But Day Daddy has a new plan. He’s going to start slacking off at work, and let so much work pile up, that Night Daddy will be forced to spend his evenings working instead of enjoying a few hours to himself. Take that, Night Daddy!
Here’s a brief glimpse into Suburban Daddy’s world. This was last Sunday morning around 8am. Understandably, your first reaction will be oh, how cute. And, taken out of context, I would agree. But imagine this started at 5:45am, and went on all day long. Then imagine it kept repeating, day after day, like the movie Groundhog Day. Yes, welcome to my world.
Most dads and dads-to-be are aware of the usual duties expected of them. Changing diapers, getting up in the middle of the night, being a human jungle gym. But there are many more realities that are impossible to predict or understand until you’ve been at it a while.