I am very excited. This is my first post here on DadBloggers. Let me take a moment to introduce myself to you. I am the Two Okapis’ Daddy. When my wife first got pregnant, before we even knew there were two inside of her, we struggled with what to call this little living being growing inside of her. “He?” “She?” “It?” None of those felt right to us. Since we didn’t know the sex of our little baby, we couldn’t come up with a decent name. We were stuck and unsure of what to do.

That weekend, my wife and I went to the Bronx Zoo with her family to enjoy a day with the wildlife outside of Manhattan. Not once did she throw up, though she struggled with feeling well all day. Thankfully, we were able to have fun despite how she was feeling. I remember only her parents knew, but a couple of her siblings were there and they had no idea why her parents were so fussy over Giokazta, my wife. Looking back, we were not subtle in any way, shape, or form.

The Zoo was trying to publicize its special Congo Forest Exhibit and had signs up asking, “Have you seen an Okapi?” So whenever we saw a four-legged animal, my wife would ask, “Is that an Okapi?” While I like to fancy myself knowledgeable about animals, I didn’t know. I had never seen an Okapi myself. Of course, none of them were and soon it became a little joke between us.

Then we got a chance to go to the Congo Exhibit which we had yet to experience because it was always so crowded. However, that day there was no line and we went straight in. They create a whole new world inside this exhibit, giving you the feeling that you have walked out of New York City and into…well, the Congo (okay, I’m just guessing it feels like the Congo – I actually haven’t been there). The trees are different even the temperature felt different. We walked along the path, thoroughly enjoying the experience, when we saw a very large brown animal with amazing white stripes on its hind legs.

I have been to many zoos and aquariums, watched many nature shows and have even been to the Galapagos Islands; I had never seen an animal like that before in my life. It was very strange looking, yet gorgeous, and had a magical feel to it. It was standing out in the open staring right at us staring right at it. I was able to take my eyes off of it for one second to find a sign to tell us what animal this might be.

“Sweetie, “ I whispered poking my wife. “This is an Okapi,” I said with a smile.

“It’s beautiful.”

Several moments passed while we all stared at each other until there was a sound behind us and the Okapi moved back into the brush. The next people walking down the path walked right by without seeing the Okapi and had no idea what they had missed.

That night, my wife and I were lying in bed exhausted from our adventure at the Zoo. She had her hands on her belly, looking at it, maybe trying to see through it to our little being.

“How ya doing in there, little Okapi?”

“Okapi?” I turned my head to her.

“Yeah, is that ok?”

“Yeah, it is.”

When we saw the sonogram and realized it wasn’t a shadow but another little being growing inside my wife, they became Okapis. And they have been ever since.

As parents, we have taken to heart the hackneyed but valuable advice, “Pick your batttles.” Thus we make a number of decisions and give our son some directives and that are non-negotiable.  The rest of the time we try to be flexible.  We try, however, not to nag, argue or vacillate.  Instead we make simple deals.  “How about this?  How about if you finish this much food and pick up your blocks, then we’ll go outside for a while?” “Let’s make a deal.  If you try to go potty before we leave, I’ll read you that story in the car.”

Discussions are calm and our son is rarely oppositional.  The approach has worked well so far, with one side effect:  negotiations are now being initiated by both sides.

Several months back our son wanted my assistance to set up one of his toy train tracks.  So together we created a nice big set-up for his little trains.  Not only because part of me is still 8 years old, but also to be a good parent, I stayed with him and began playing with the train (as we had played together hundreds of times before).  This time, however, he looked at me defensively and stated, “This is my train set.  You shouldn’t play with it.”

“We can both play.  You can drive that engine around there and I could use this one over here,” I suggested.

Still firm, “Actually, I don’t want you to play.”

Instead of letting go, I felt compelled to pursue this lesson in sharing.  Mild guilt can be useful, “Well, I helped you build this nice train track.  Aren’t you glad I did that?  Don’t you want to share with me?”

”No.”

“Well, I thought I did something nice for you by helping you build this track.  Don’t you think it would be fair for me to be able to play with it too?”

He stopped to think for a few seconds, seemed to relax his attitude a little, but remained very serious and earnest, proposing, “How about this?  How about I play with the trains and you go make lunch.”

Quite a deal.  He’s got the language down, his concept of quid pro quo needs a little development.

His technique appeared again when (several months ago) we stooped to using material rewards to jump-start his seemingly non-existent interest in potty training, at times even (gasp!) candy.

At first it was very motivating.  After a while he apparently became fatigued by having to go through the whole disruptive, messy potty process to earn his reward.  So he put an offer on the table, “I’m proposing a new deal.  How about I get a gummi worm when I don’t go potty?”

Unfortunately for him, this was a non-starter.  Again, he was learning he has to offer a little more to the other side.

Another time we needed to go to the laundromat, and Benjamin was really looking forward to it.  For some reason, though, that day he chose to completely dress himself from head to toe for the first time.  From struggling to get his big little head through the hole in his shirt to trying to pull on each sock with 20 tiny little yanks, this took quite a while.

With his “Don’t help!  I can do it,” and my “I don’t know if we’ll have time to go . . . .” it was getting a little tense.  In the end, we ran out of time and I knew there would be trouble.  I broke it to him and asked — rhetorically — if it was OK that we weren’t going today.  (Normally, I try to remember: it’s a bad idea to ask if there’s only one option.) He was skeptical and frustrated but said, “Well, it’s . . . OK . . . but, well, it’s only OK if we . . . if we go to the laundromat another day.”

“Uhhh . . . OK It’s a deal!”

First he was a little heavy on the ”quid ”; then he was a little heavy on the ”quo.” That’s OK; we wouldn’t want him to get too savvy, too soon, or we might have mutiny on our hands.

So far we’re pretty confident in our parenting, but at this rate, if we need advice, instead of “Nanny 911,” we’ll have to turn to “Deal or No Deal.”

Why is it that children, particularly boys, have such an aversion to new clothes? Granted introducing a new pair of pants 10 minutes before you need to get the kid out the door to commute to school is pretty stupid.  Until earlier this month, my son would not even part with his Winter jacket and only in the past few days I got him to wear a sweatshirt to school.

My son will also not part with his sweatpants. He will not wear any pants that he feels are too tight. He is so used to his winter weight sweats that anything less he won’t wear it. On the flip side, he has a few sets of pants that are really legging type pants that we allow him to wear only as indoor pants. And today he wanted to wear them to school.

Being the obstinate child he can be, he wasn’t backing down. Finally as we were running extremely late to school I relented and let him wear these pants under other pants as it was cool enough outside to get away with it.

Were we as bad about new clothing as our kids?  I don’t recall being given choices when I was this age and maybe that is the problem. Some things kids don’t get a choice. But again is it worth it?  My wife says some of the kids who even get out of their pajamas are sent to school that way. I can’t believe the teachers would let them stay. I guess the idea is if the other kids make fun then the kid will not wear them to school again.

Just trying to get him to “try on” on something referred to as “new” is enough for him to run the other way.  AAAaarrrggghhh!!!

I am at the point that if I buy something I am thinking of just leaving it in his dresser a few months so I can say “this is not new, you’ve had it for months” to see if that will get him to agree to wear it. Anybody have any better ideas?

Claire, now 14 months old, is quite mobile and has begun to talk more and more, but I remember one day at daycare she was sitting on the floor and a toddler walked over and proceeded to punch her in the head. I yelled across the room and, in slow motion, I ran towards her. I wanted to yank his puny little arms from his shoulder sockets, but now our struggle recently is HER hitting other kids and throwing toys at the infants in daycare.

Daycare is at my work and the other afternoon when I picked her up, they told me about this new behavior. When something new comes up, I usually mention it to my mother, who, this time, said “Well, at least she’s not biting kids in the face like you did!” I remember this vaguely from when I was younger, but now here I am on the other side of things. Even though she’s only 14 months, she’s already 34 inches tall. So people don’t think of her as a baby, but more like a two year old, and people expect more from her.

We use a stern “NO” and remove her from the situation when she does things that she shouldn’t do. And when she’s sitting with us, she sometimes hits us in the face. We say “No” and hold her hand. My wife wears glasses and sometimes Claire knocks them off of her, or she will crack a plastic toy over the bridge of one of our noses. She’s learning slowly, and so are we.

Another problem we have had is that at daycare they give her a time out in her crib. This form of discipline isn’t the best idea because they want the baby to sleep in the same place where they reprimand her.

Claire has taken to not sleeping at daycare at all, which is a concern since on the weekends she usually has two 2-3 hour naps and sleeps 9-12 hours at night. I wonder how other dads handle hitting at day care when it’s your kid?

As I helped break the barrel open on a brand new Stoeger single-shot 20ga. youth model shotgun, I couldn’t help but think that this would be the last time I have my ‘shooting buddy’ at the range with me. Mainly because my shooting buddy was my 55 pound, 7 year old son, Gavin.

Now the words ‘youth gun’ and 20ga. are synonymous with children, but recoil knows no size and does not discriminate. Let me clear something up before you judge me too bad for giving my 7 year old a 20ga. shotgun.

At this point, he has been shooting longer than most soldiers serving 4 year terms in the military. I bought him a bb gun when he turned 4, and after a year of teaching the basics such as sight alignment, muzzle control, and all the gun safety I could cram into his head (when he could hit the target, and he wasn’t going to shoot me in the rear) he graduated to a Davey Crikett .22cal single shot bolt action rifle. He nearly perfected the use of this rifle through constant training and about 10,000 rounds of ammunition, half a dozen squirrels, a raccoon and some crows. At about $8.00 a 550 round box, training a youngster how to enjoy the fine art of shooting is pretty cheap. SIDENOTE: If you want to keep it cheap, don’t put a collapsible stock on your AR-15.

Thus began his love for the ‘Evil Black Rifle’. MY AR-15 may now be HIS favorite gun. Thus began my venture into reloading, but that is for another article.

Training my son how to shoot has been one of the most rewarding challenges I have ever faced. When you take a young child who doesn’t know which end of the gun the bullet comes out of, and watch as he transforms into a jr marksman well beyond his years, well lets just say there’s a certain level of pride. The feeling I get when we are at the range and hear, “That’s the kid I was telling you about”, is incredible.

Now anyone who spends any amount of time at a range knows that ten guys shooting all at once sorta sounds like the invasion of Normandy, but imagine it all going silent except for one little “crack....crack....crack”. Of course I think something’s wrong so I look up from my scope to see ten grown men standing behind “The Boy” as he’s popping off clay pigeon after clay pigeon at about 120 yards with a cheap little 22 with iron sights. I just stared on with pride. If “The Boy” reads this, his head will probably get a little bigger, but I can deal with that when he’s old enough to compete in matches.

There’s nothing better to take some swelling out of an ego than to see that there are others that can do what you can do. But until then, I’ll just have to deal with it. So, the next step was deer hunting. Here in the socialist Republic of Maryland, one cannot use a rifle for hunting, we are limited to a shotgun during our firearms season. And that’s where the Stoeger comes in. We bought it from a local gun dealer and went straight to the range.

Trying to explain the concept of pain by recoil was falling on deaf ears, so with the click of the hammer and a prayer, he was taking his first shot. Two things happened when he applied 7.5 pounds of pressure to his right index finger. 1 - I thanked God that I had the foresight to place my hand on his back and 2 - we had to replace the target of the man shooting next to us. He looked up at me and said “Wow, it didn’t hurt”. I didn’t call him a liar, but I could read his eyes. The pain had no place in his desire to master his next challenge. About 10 or so shots later, he was keeping all shots in the vitals at 50 yards and I was able to remove my hand from his back. 10 more and I saved him the embarrassment of giving in to the pain. He has now improved his groups to about 1 M.O.B.(minute of bowling pin) at 50 yards. The more he grows in knowledge and ability, the more amazed I get.

What is the reason for all this talk of my son? Other than a free opportunity to brag, its a small example of what millions of dads in America are missing. We (Dads) have an opportunity to be filled with joy while doing something we love. As a father, I have a 7 year old boy who idolizes me. Now if you don’t know what that feels like, it is incredible. By taking a simple pleasure of my life and sharing it with my son, I have created a bond between two souls that will never be broken.

If you enjoy shooting like I do and you have children old enough (use your discretion) and you are shooting alone and ‘buddies’ don’t count, then you are missing one of life’s great blessings. Some will say “My child is not mature enough yet”. Well, maturity starts with you. There is nothing specially programmed by God into “The Boy”, he has been trained to 1 - obey (without obedience, a firearm doesn’t belong in their hands) and 2 - respect (without respect, you’re asking for a disaster). These things can be obtained by anyone who wants them. But you have to sacrifice yourself, put your child’s needs before your own and consistently train them in life. Not shooting, but life.

The Bible teaches us in Proverbs 22:6 that if we train up a child in the way he should go, then when he is old he will not turn from it.

Deut 11:18 Therefore shall you lay up these my words in your heart and in your soul; and you shall bind them for a sign on your hand, and they shall be for symbols between your eyes.
Deut 11:19 You shall teach them to your children, talking of them, when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up.
Deut 11:20 You shall write them on the door-posts of your house, and on your gates;

This means that you, DAD, have an ongoing responsibility to teach and train your children but not only when convenient, because most of the time it won’t be. But the blessing is worth the challenge. You just have to decide if you are you up to the challenge because your “Boy” is.

(*Shooting buddy; not to be confused with “Fishing buddy”, Which has unfortunately been redefined by Broke back mountain.)