The potty training roller coaster finally reached the top of the track again. After a seeming low point last weekend, when my son pooped on the floor, just 4 feet from the toilet (I don’t know why I did it, Daddy), we have had 5 accident free days in a row! I credit a new incentive program where he got a star sticker every day, and once he had five stickers, he got a toy guitar. We talked up the guitar all week, and today was the big day. So far, so good. But, I don’t think he’s pooped in two days, and it’s awfully quite upstairs right now…
Category: struggles
Getting a preschooler to finish their dinner
I have written about using bribes (uh, incentives) to get my kids to do what I want. Here’s a twist on conventional wisdom that I’m eager to try out. Usually, we use dessert as the incentive for eating their dinner. “Finish your vegetables and you can have a cookie”. This worked for a time, but now it seems, to a preschooler, that the work involved to finish all the vegetables isn’t worth the wait for a cookie.
So, throwing convention on its head, I’m ready to offer the dessert up front to get it out of the way. Then, as long as he’s hungry, he’ll eat the vegetables anyway. It’s just twisted enough to work, especially in the mind preschoolers, who are so honest and trusting.? After all, who else would admit to stealing their brother’s toy if I just ask?
People without kids have a big advantage
Kids are an enormous productivity drain. I have a todo list that only seems to grow, no matter how much I manage to get done. There just aren’t enough hours in the day. Case in point: It’s been 3 weeks since I made a blog entry. Any free moment I manage to squeeze in (usually in the car or the bathroom), my mind goes blank and I drift into the daddy fog. You know, that feeling you get in your car when you can’t remember the last 10 minutes.
All great inventions and ideas came from people before they had kids. Thomas Edison, Benjamin Franklin, Bill Gates, Henry Ford. There’s no way they could have come up with the light bulb and automobile otherwise. The most productive countries, measured by GDP, are those with the lowest birth rates. Ok, I’m just guessing at that one, but it wouldn’t surprise me…
Survivor – Daddy Edition
You know those cheesy tourist shirts that say things like “I Survived Mt Washington”? Well, it’s monday morning and “I Survived Another Weekend With My Kids”. Monday mornings are filled with feelings of accomplishment, exhaustion, and backaches from giving too many daddy-horse-back-rides.
I am the exception in the workplace. The guy who is actually happy to be back at work on monday morning. After all, my weekday job is the easier of my two jobs. It’s the place where I get to relax in front of my computer, sip coffee, have adult conversations without interruption, and enjoy the relative quiet. On weekdays, the real work begins at 5:30pm when I pick up the kids at preschool. Then, in a blur, it’s the dinner-baths-bedtime routine before it all starts again at 5:45am the next day.
Weekends are for rest? For dads with small kids, weekends are a game of survivor. And just like the TV show, our goal is to Outwit. Outlast. Outplay.
What’s in a name? Everything.
An expectant dad has a lot of pressures and details to worry about. Getting the nursery ready, learning about which crib and car seats are the safest. Taking care of the mom-to-be’s cravings and whims. But nothing compares with the pressure of picking a name for your child. A name is a lifelong “gift” you give your kids, and if you get it wrong, it can have impacts for years to come.
A couple hundred years ago, choosing a name was much simpler. There were only a handful to choose from. Boys were John, William, or James. Girls were Mary, Margaret, or Sarah. Today, almost anything can pass as name, as celebrity babies Suri Cruise and Shiloh Pitt-Jolie will tell you.
You don’t want a name to be too common, so when the teacher calls their name in school five kids raise their hands. Luckily, the Social Security website publishes the 1000 most common names each year, so you can see how a name is trending in popularity. As an example, Abigail has been on the rise, moving from 500th place in the seventies to the 4th most popular name in 2005.
You also don’t want a name to be too unique. Unless you are a famous actor or singer, you’ll have to deal with the constant You named him what? and That’s not a real name! comments.
Don’t forget to test a name for the taunt factor, as in, will fifth graders be able to use it as a source of ridicule against your child. Richard is a prime example. Just ask Tricky Dick. Also, make sure it doesn’t rhyme with any body parts or bodily functions — e.g. Cooper (the pooper) and Dolores (remember the Seinfeld episode).
Thinking about a common name, but with an uncommon spelling? Think again. Just ask an Ashleigh, Madisyn, or Jayson how much they enjoy having everyone misspell their name.
It’s enough to make you crazy. Maybe they were right in the 1800s. Just stick to a few easy to spell, taunt proof names, so expectant dads can spend time worrying about important things – like which color to paint the baby’s room.
How Kids Make You Older
Whoever said kids keep you young was either a) lying, or b) didn’t have any kids. Kids speed the aging process. The more kids, the faster the process. It is unavoidable.
There are the obvious signs of aging, like gray hair. Just like every U.S. president goes gray while in office, so does every dad go gray soon after having kids. I found an interesting explanation of why hair turns gray on, of all places, a kids health website. What this site fails to mention to kids is that they are the biggest reason hair turns gray. The endless why questions of a preschooler. The public temper tantrums on an airplane. The 5am wakeup calls consisting of jumping on daddy.
Then there are the times kids make you feel you’ve become that old guy you used to joke about. The guy that drives a minivan, can’t stay awake past 10pm, and falls asleep during football games.
I recently experienced the ultimate in feeling old: driving the babysitter home. On the drive home, she said she can’t wait to get her license soon, making her fifteen. It occured to me that during my college years, which until then seemed like recent memory, was when she was born. How did that happen?
There’s no fruit in a fruit rollup
Getting my preschooler to eat fruits or vegetables is near impossible. His diet mainly consists of chicken nuggets, waffles, pizza, pasta, chicken nuggets, and crackers. Did I mention chicken nuggets? What is it with those that is so damn appealing to kids?
There are a few almost fruit and vegetable items that he’ll eat. One is ketchup, which can be used on anything listed above, or eaten straight from a spoon. Not kidding. Ketchup has tomatoes, so it’s a vegetable, right? The others look like they might contain some fruit, but they are really fruit themed candy.
Fruit rollups hardly count as fruit. They are basically sugar, and food coloring which comes off on hands, faces, and the white tee shirt that Daddy is wearing. Want to know what is in a Blastin Berry fruit rollup? Pears from concentrate, corn syrup (aka sugar), dried corn syrup (more sugar), sugar, partially hydrogenated cottonseed oil, citric acid, sodium citrate, pectin, distilled monoglycerides, malic acid, vitamin C (yay!), acetylated mono and diglycerides, natural flavor, color. Now I’m certainly no health nut, but that doesn’t sound very good.
Yogos, Kellogg’s yogurty covered fruit flavored snacks. These things come with a neat little dispenser that kids want to use over and over. Think Pez. Again, the main ingredients are sugar, but at least they add 100% daily recommended vitamin C, so I can rationalize him eating them. It’s like drinking a glass of orange juice every day.
Joys of Potty Training
For the most part, my three year old is potty trained, though he still asks for help when he goes. At night, he wears pull-ups because he can’t make it through the night yet. I’ve been trying to teach him to get up in the middle of the night when he needs to go. I told him to come get Mommy or Daddy (preferably Mommy), and we’ll help him go, then put him back to bed.
Last night, for the first time, he actually woke up to go potty, around 4am. My son is very independent, and instead of waking us up to help, tried to go on his own. I’m not sure if he actually peed or not, but I found him without pants in the morning in his bed. His pants were on the bathroom floor. And, an entire roll of toilet paper was in the toilet. Not the thin, transparent kind in public restrooms, that doesn’t clog drains. Oh no, this was Charmin Ultra, the softest, most absorbant TP money can buy. And not your ordinary single roll, this was the double duty with twice as many sheets. Did I mention the roll was full?
So this morning I found myself fishing the paper out with my hands, trying to unclog the toilet. All the while, telling my son I was proud of him for at least trying to go by himself. Ahh, the joys of potty training.