I’m from Iowa; my wife is from Missouri. Ours is a land whose accent is no accent at all - though you may hear the occasional St. Louisian mention highway ‘farty’. People in the popular media spend a lot of time and money trying to sound like us.

How is it, then, that my son is from Georgia?

Ian, what animal is this? ‘Cayat!’ Ian, what is Daddy wearing on his head? ‘A hayat!’ Ian, come here, please. ‘I cayan’t!’ ‘I need my payants!’ and ‘I’m going to wash my hayands!’

Don’t get me wrong, I like Steel Magnolias as much as the next guy. I’d just rather my son not sound like Paula Deen; I was thinking more along the lines of Alton Brown.

At first, we couldn’t figure out where Ian had found his penchant for diphthongs. It wasn’t that we were worried about his linguistic development; as far as kids and their problems go, we were picking the nit. It was just...strange. Odd. Weird.

It was a mystery with no explanation, and explanations are all that seperates eccentricity from the cat-wielding crone who smells of feet. I don’t care if my son wants to watch The Incredibles while sitting on the toilet, so long as I can figure out why.

Thankfully a janitor at my wife’s school - who happens to have a degree in early-childhood development - told her that Ian’s struggle with vowels is a normal phase of his learning to speak English. Apparently if we were British, we wouldn’t be having this problem. Thank goodness for well-educated janitors!

Now if only I could get my son to stop referring to himself in the third person…

Last weekend was quite the hoot. We decided at the last minute to take a 5 hour road trip to Massachusetts to see my wife’s great grandmother. She is 96 years old or at least close to it. This would make her our children’s great great grandmother, as there are 5 total generations. We packed up the 4 kids and headed out the door at 6:30am sharp. Now I am not sure if any of you have even dared attempt such an adventure but let me tell you our track record is not good when it comes to traveling with little kids. One of the most horrific adventures was traveling from Ohio to Maine in the dead of Winter with 2 kids under the age 2. The road trip was 16 hours of driving time and almost 1,000 miles.

So for some of you who do not understand what it might be like or will soon attempt a road trip with 2, 3, or 4 children I will make it very clear as what to expect once you hit the road. After you stop to fill up the gas tank at the gas station on the corner, one of the kids will ask you if we are almost there. After you huff and sigh, and say no, they ask when. Be very prepared to become short tempered and peeved just prior to approaching the on ramp of the Interstate.

Usually about 5 miles down the highway either one of the children or all of them in unison decide they are thirsty… “I thirsteeeeeeeeeeeeeee daddeeeeeee”

So out come the drinks with 4 hours and 45 minutes left of the trip. What do kids have to do when they drink? Yep, they have to pee…

“I gotta go peeeeeeee” is usually sounded out by one or all of them shortly after their drinks are gone. So be prepared to stop about 30 minutes into your trip to empty bladders and run around. After getting back into the car things may seem to be going fine for a while. Enjoy that moment to think about how much you love your family and how blessed you are that you can all live in a free country and travel from state to state freely. And of course think about how much of a wonderful dad you are to bring your kids out into the world to experience as much as possible. Think hard because within 15 minutes one of the kids will break the silence… “Dadddeeeee, I hungreeeeee.”

Soon there is a big chorus as all the rest of the kids agree… “Yea, daddeeeee I hungreeee toooo.”

Soon the pre-made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches come out. If the child is over 5 years old then they get peanut butter and jelly mostly on face, upper part of shirt, and on nose and hair. If the child is under 5 then the child will be wearing peanut butter and jelly from tip of nose to knees, and don’t forget in the hair as well.

Then there is a bunch of laughter and giggling and talking loud amongst all children from the sudden burst of energy provided by the sandwiches. You can’t hear anything but your ear drum vibrating for what could be 30 minutes, until one of the youngest kids announces they have pooped in their diaper. Laughter again radiates throughout the car followed by the raunchiest stench any man has ever smelled in their life.

So it has been about an hour and a half and your next stop is quite sudden and unprepared as you change diapers and let the older ones out to go potty. Once the kids file back into the car you are now still thinking about that dirty diaper and how no man should ever have to smell something like that.

Soon you will hear one of the younger children vomit, spewing forth undigested peanut-butter and jelly chunks onto their outfit and car seat. As you scurry around to find napkins and towels you see vomit oozing down into the cracks and crevices of the car seat you bought at Target. Never once when you were buying the thing did you think such a terrible episode would ever have to happen. But it just did!

This time you park on the side of the Interstate with your hazards flashing while you clean up the mess. Expect a good 15 minutes of scrubbing and getting things cleaned up.

The rest of the trip is up to your imagination. Don’t forget there is always a ride home. Rides home are usually the easiest as the kids are all tuckered out from the day and will sleep most of the way home.

Here are some things to remember to bring prior to road trips with kids:

1. Plenty of diapers and baby wipes (This should be obvious but just checking)
2. For each child over 4 years old, bring one extra outfit. For each child under 4, bring two.
3. Bring several large water bottles full of juice. Dilute the juice. It is better for their tummies.
4. Bring snacks. Make sure the snacks do not have jelly or chocolate in them.
5. Bring about 12 plastic bags from the grocery store. This is for trash and unexpected diaper changes and vomiting.
6. Blankets. Each child should have a blanket whether or not it is cold or hot out. When they get tired they will resort back to how they normally sleep. If a blanket is missing, they may not sleep well on the way home which leads to crying.
7. One toy for each child.
8. For adults, one change of socks. Just prior to driving home, actually put on new socks and put the dirty ones in a plastic bag, tie it up and put in trunk.  Trust me, you may not even think of it but if you do this your ride home will be more enjoyable.
9. Roll of Bounty paper towels.
10. A half dozen washclothes and roughly 3 large bath towels.

Enjoy your next family trip!

I suppose all siblings fight, now and then.  If they didn’t, we’d probably think something was wrong.  I’m told there are some species of bird in which the first one to hatch will push the other eggs out of the nest, killing its siblings to monopolize its parents’ attention and ensure its own survival.  By comparison, trying to push one another off of Dad’s lap seems rather genteel. Our girls, Natasha (4) and Alessandra (2), will fight over just about anything; Mom’s attention, Dad’s attention, a particular toy or a particular chair.  You name it.  If there’s only one of something, chances are they both want it.  Now.

But there’s another side to their interaction.  For every minute they spend fighting, they spend 30 playing happily.  They share as often as they try to take by force and they make each other laugh more often than they make each other cry.  Allie gives Natasha a sense of being “big,” and Natasha gives her little sister a role model to emulate.

Yesterday was Allie’s second birthday, and just over a year since she was first placed in our arms.  It was naturally a time for reflection.  In contrast to Natasha’s adoption trip, which was largely stress free (notwithstanding the normal anxieties of first-time parents), Allie’s was difficult and at times scary.  Yet looking back, it seems to have foreshadowed the type of relationship our daughters would have.

It all started inconspicuously enough.  The van was just pulling away from our building to take us to JFK, when Natasha sneezed.  It will be remembered as the “Sneeze Heard ‘Round the World.” By the time we arrived in Hong Kong, she was running a fever.  We called our pediatrician from the hotel, and she told us not to worry:  just monitor her temperature, and give her Children’s Tylenol if it gets too high.  If things didn’t improve in a couple of days we should call her back.

We forgot to convey her sense of comfort to the customs people in Changsha, our port of entry into the PRC.  After all the negative press in 2003 for failing to respond appropriately to the SARS outbreak, the Chinese government is now sparing no expense to make sure that no temperature goes untaken upon entry or departure.  And there I was, trying to smuggle a 30-lb. fever into the country during flu season.

Not really wanting to see first hand what a Chinese quarantine looks like, I tried walking in backwards, pretending I was leaving.  Well, they saw through that old ploy.  Then I suggested that they average our temperatures, since I was holding Natasha; fear had reduced my body temperature to about 92 F, so together we were golden.  They weren’t amused.  (Chinese customs agents are about as cheerful as, well, every other country’s customs agents). But after much debate and several temperature readings, they allowed us to enter.

For the next couple of days, Natasha’s temperature rose and fell but stayed above normal.  It all came to a head on Allie’s adoption day.  We received custody the day before, with Natasha scared and clinging to her mother in a crowded and chaotic Civil Affairs Office.  Natasha was in a fog and Allie was terrified, her face set with a “deer-in-the-headlights” look that would take 6 months to go away completely (most adoptive parents know what I mean).  Neither took much notice of the other.

On the morning of Adoption Day we decided 2 things:  Natasha would stay in the hotel with my sister (who proved to be a life saver) and we would start her on the antibiotics we had brought along “just in case.” By the time we returned that afternoon, the proud parents of a second daughter, our eldest’s temperature was 101 F and climbing.  When it reached 102, Tammy went to the Business Center to look into flights back to the States.  (Yeah, like they’d let a Chinese girl with a fever into the US, assuming she was allowed out of China.  “Honest, Officer, she got sick in Hoboken, I swear, cross my heart and hope to die!”).  At 103.5 I stripped her down and put her, screaming (both of us at this point), into a lukewarm bath.  This brought it back to 102, and it continued to drop by about a half degree an hour.  By six that evening, nearly 12 hours after the first dose of Zithromax, her temperature was normal.

As I knelt in front of her clutching the thermometer, staring at it like 98.7 was a winning lottery number, Natasha sat up, tired, sweaty and jet-lagged and asked me: “Where’s Allie?”

“Over there,” I replied, pointing at the small form sleeping on the floor.

“Is she OK?”

Natasha’s words gave me chills.  I could not believe that her first thought upon recovering from an illness was concern about the wellbeing of the sister she had barely even met.  I looked over at the 12-month old baby who could not even sit up, whose hair was far too light and whose only bowel movement in the prior 36 hours looked like a piece of broken sidewalk and said “Yeah, she’s OK.” And I knew she would be:  she not only had parents who would give her the love and care she’d been missing, but a sister who would look after her as well.

A year later, each time they fight, we think maybe God is testing us.  Then they play together sweetly and we think that maybe they’re a gift that we don’t deserve.  Reflecting on the last year, I realize that both thoughts are self centered and miss the point.  It’s not about us.  Natasha and Allie aren’t God’s gift to us; each is his gift to the other.  May they always make each other laugh.

Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old, he will not depart from it. (Proverbs 22:6)

To train a child is the single biggest responsibility a man will ever undertake. Note, I said train and not raise. The two terms are unfortunately intermingled way to often. In trying to understand the difference, I have learned the joy and blessing of my children. To be with them, teaching and nurturing their every step. Too many men lose focus on what is truly important in their life and all to often the time is gone when you realize it. Try to imagine a nearly 100% obedient child, who idolizes you in every way and could think of being nothing but you when he grows up. This can be any mans life if he is willing to put forth what it takes to make it happen.

You must first earn the respect of your children. Without this, it’s like driving a car with no engine. A child of 6 months can see that you are easy to manipulate and therefore you’re not going to begin to earn it. What I mean is, a 1 month old who is picked up every time he cries will, at 4-5 months, know how to get his way. That’s manipulation and ease of manipulation does not earn respect. A 2 year old who refuses to eat by holding food in his mouth is expressing his will to dominate you. Ease of domination does not earn respect. A 6 month old manipulator and a 2 year old dominator will likely be those things at 5, 10, 20 and for the rest of their lives.

That’s where the training comes in. As a Dad, you play a vital role in providing the boundaries your children will live within their entire life. Those boundaries are what children need to grow and flourish the way God wants them to. These boundaries are set in place to guide them, teach them and most importantly, to maintain their happiness. How can boundaries maintain happiness? Think of the rich and famous of the world. They have all the money and fame you could ask for and they’re miserable. Why? Because they have no boundary; there is no limit to the wealth they can accrue. Therefore they will never be happy with what they have because it will never be what they could have.

The same applies to your children. If they know their limits, they can live happily inside them. And the only way true boundaries can be obtained in your child’s life is through absolute consistency of both Mom and DAD. Once that has been accomplished, the level of joy your children will bring and the fun you can have with them is “limitless”. I have been able to introduce my son to shooting. At four years old, he got his first BB gun and a year after that he graduated to a .22 rifle. He was shooting a firearm at the age of 5 and doing it safely and accurately. Without the boundaries in his life I would not have trusted him with a rubber band gun. But now we are able to spend every Sunday afternoon at the range together. That’s something he will never forget. That and all the other wonderful things I share with my kids are what keep me going. (not to mention the excellent marriage I have).

I guess what I’m getting at is this: You have about 18 years with your children. Most men don’t see them as much more than ‘in the way’ after the first few years but you can enjoy them for a lifetime as long as you’re willing to put forth the effort and the sacrifice of self to make it happen. The world says that undisciplined, unruly and disrespectful children are the norm. Well I say let it be. I’m gonna have extraordinary children.

Dad, your kids need you but they’re not going to ask. You have to be a man and make it happen. For their sake and your sanity, train your children up right. Don’t just let Mama raise them by herself. That’s what she‘s doing when you “have to“ work late again or are out with buddies. Come home from work on time and tell you buddies goodbye. You have your real job at home with your real buddies.