My side of the family comes from decidedly non-Viking-like stock. We have a good bit of southern woods Native American (those are Indians) mixed in, along with (I’m assuming) some sort of pale European genetic material. Unlike my wife’s side of the family, who are endowed with a dollop of hefty Germanic breeding, myself and the rest of my family are little people for the most part.

But we’re spunky and that makes up for a lot.

Yesterday MLI (my little introvert) came home from daycare with an injury report and this time he wasn’t the victim. Instead, he was the cause. Or was he?

As is always the case with these things, what happened leading up to the “incident” depends largely on whom you talk to. My son’s teacher told Careermom that an older boy was being some sort of undisclosed “mean” to my son and in retaliation, my son bit him. The “victim’s” teacher says my son was just being mean. MLI hasn’t bitten anyone since he was a toddler and he’s four now, so something unusual must have happened to cause him to do this.

Of course he got “the talk” and he lost a privilege or two at home, but throughout the evening, both CareerMom and I questioned him about the incident, and the story, at least from his viewpoint, unfolded something like this:

MLI and some of his friends are often on the playground at the same time as a couple of older classes. There are some older boys who, for whatever reason, gravitate around my son and his friends, probably because my son and his homeys are usually playing “Superfriends” while these older kids are playing “Power Rangers.” Now, for some reason, I have a serious aversion to the Power Rangers, as do the parents of MLI’s best friend, so they don’t play Power Rangers. But this doesn’t stop the older kids from coming over and attempting to rope the younger ones into playing. And in doing so, they call them “Boom Rangers.” Yeah, I don’t get it either, but...whatever.  The point is, the older kids frequently bother the younger kids and this isn’t the first time we’ve heard of there being a problem.

Yesterday while my son was on the swing, this other boy stood nearby trying to get him off the swing and kept calling him a “Boom Ranger.” There was also some kind of “...sneaking up on me and I don’t like that...” going on. This went on until somehow the two boys got really close together and MLI bit the older boy. End of story.

But I have a couple of problems with this:
1. My son bit an older boy? Hmm, that in itself is suspect. I mean, I don’t doubt that it happened; I doubt the “who’s at fault?” theory.
2. Why was this older boy stalking my child and where were the playground monitors?
3. My son typically avoids confrontation. If something is going on he doesn’t like, he attempts to flee (”...so we can fight another day!")

Looking back at the times when I was little when I did something notoriously stupid, like pushing Ryan Smith into the lockers in 5th grade after I’d finally taken enough of his crap, I know that I’d reacted out of sheer frustration, not meanness. It wasn’t premeditated; I simply reacted out of emotion. And you know what? It worked. Ryan and I became close friends, which most dads know is usually what happens in these situations.

Obviously, I can’t condone biting under any circumstances; but while I disagree with the method, I don’t begrudge him the sentiment, or for that matter, the act itself. Had the bite been a shove, or even a hit, as long as it was in self-defense, I’m OK with it.

Childhood psychologists worldwide are shaking their heads at me right now (I’m sure many read this blog), but folks I’m sorry, I’m not going to beat my kid up for defending himself.

But I’m curious to hear from other dads, and moms. How do you deal with these situations?

As it turns out, MLE (My Little Extrovert) was bitten yesterday, so as a whole, we came out even. The universe is pretty good like that isn’t it?

A favorite pastime of mine (besides blogging) is catching the media making fun of us bumbling fathers. If we’re not almost dropping our kids on the floor, we’re bleaching out the family’s clothes and begging for our spouses to come bail us out. Truth is, most guys I know are as equally adept at household work and parenting as their spousal counterpart is.

This weekend, MLI (my little introvert) had two birthday parties to attend. One was smack dab in the middle of a baby shower CareerMom was having for her sister, so I took MLI and MLE (my little extrovert) to the party. It was at a place called, “My Gym.” If you don’t have these, they are wonderful little indoor playgrounds, full of plastic ball pools, monkey bars and zip lines. After an hour and a half of playing here, the kids are blissfully wiped out. It’s the best venue we’ve found for a party yet, and that includes the places with the big jumpy things.

When we arrived, I had MLI offer up his birthday gift and he took off to play with his friends, while I and MLE headed off to find a seat where I could let my little one wander around under my watchful eye. The father of MLI’s best friend wandered over and we struck up a conversation. He’s in a similar situation as me. He works full time, as does his wife. His wife frequently travels, as she is somehow involved in sports broadcasting. After we had the, “You play golf? We should get together...” conversation where we are both kidding ourselves about having enough free time, we inevitably turned to a talk about our kids.

Me: “So you got moved into your new house today huh? Congrats! Ethan (MLI) is sure going to miss your son when he changes daycares.”

Him: “Oh, we’re not sure we’re gonna move him now. We’ve heard some bad things about XY Daycare.”

Me: “That’s too bad. We went there for a while too and came back. It just wasn’t right for us either.  Hey, is your wife doing the NCAA games?”

Him: “Nah, she took off for a few weeks. It’s been great because I can go into work early, work late if I need to; it’s gonna be tough when she goes back to work. Which is part of the reason we were going to change daycares, since this one is a bit far for me to drive every day. Otherwise, the only other thing I don’t like about our daycare now is the merry-go-round of workers.”

Me: “Yeah, the class our youngest is in drives me nuts. The head lady there acts like I’m a total buffoon and talks down to me like I have no clue what I’m doing. She’s pretty annoying!”

Him: (Animatedly now!) “Oh, I know. People don’t think I know how to take care of my kids, but truth is, they are better with me than they are my wife and she doesn’t believe me. But the other day we had some friends over and the kids were misbehaving and my wife was trying to get them settled down and our friends told my wife, “Oh, those kids have you snowed! When it’s just them and Joe, they are completely different.”

He just smiled that knowing fatherly smiled, and I of course, launched into my “Me too” speech.

It’s funny though, but before I had kids if you had asked me what would make me the most proud, I would probably have said, “Being a successful and respected writer.” But now, I might have to say, “Raising respectful and well-rounded children.” Oh, I still occasionally let MLE get too close to the stairs, or I let him wander into the dog room knowing full well he’s putting his hands in their water bowl and then licking his fingers, but overall, I think I’m doing pretty well.

I bet most of the dads who bother blogging about their kids are doing pretty well too. What do you think?

MLI (My Little Introvert = my oldest son) is sometimes too smart for his own good. I’m not saying he’s a genius or anything, because to be sure, he stalls when counting to 20 after he hits the 15 mark, skipping from 15 to 20 like a kid goes from sad to happy when bribed with an ice cream treat. But other times, I wonder about his little leaps of intuition and fear that he’s going to be like me and over-think everything to the point of making a mess of certain situations when a simple decision would have sufficed.

The other night while he was in the tub, he looked at me and said half-jokingly, “You have big teeth daddy.” This prompted me to explain how, as he got older, he’d lose his teeth and get bigger ones too just like mine. Upon reflection, I realized that perhaps this might be a little scary, so I introduced the Tooth Fairy.

“She’s this tiny little lady, no bigger than your pinky finger, and she flies around on wings like a butterfly. And when you’re asleep, she’ll come and take the tooth you lost and leave you a surprise.”

I watched his little mind process this information and I felt pretty confident that I’d done everything I could to ameliorate any misgivings he could possibly have. I got him out of the tub and we spent an uneventful rest of the evening playing blocks and pirates and having a grand old time until it was time for bed.

He’d been in bed perhaps no more than 15 minutes when I looked down the hallway towards his room and found him standing there in the moonlight with his finger in his mouth, clutching his blanket. When I asked him what was wrong, he replied in that little shaky voice that melts a parent’s heart, “Can you tell the tooth fairy not to come in my room?”

I sighed, then I knelt down and said, “Sure buddy, I’ll tell her.”

“Can you tell her right now?” he asked longingly.

“Yep, I’ll call her right now and tell her that you don’t want her to come to your room when you lose a tooth. Ok?”

He nodded and my wife carried him back to bed where he fell fast asleep; all worries gone.

But now I’m wondering, what do I do when he does lose a tooth? Do I ask him if he wants the Tooth Fairy to come and take his tooth, hoping that by then he’s gotten over his fear of Santa and the Tooth Fairy and all the wonderful mythical characters I’ve loved? Or do we just stand by our previous agreement and ban the Tooth Fairy from his room forever?

He’s a odd one sometimes and I hope that, having seen this tendency to over-think things, I can instill just a little bit of that Risky Business, “Sometimes you just gotta say, “What the fudge!” attitude in him and hope it all works out for the best. 

We have two boys. One is almost four years old and the other just passed the 11 month mark. Our oldest has become a very picky eater, often proclaiming, “I don’t like this” even before he sticks it in his mouth (if he does at all). Our youngest started eating table food about a three months ago and when he’s hungry, he’ll eat just about anything; although he definitely has a penchant for mandarin oranges.

My oldest son’s pickiness vexes me and though I know we are certainly not in this boat alone, I can’t help but wonder what I (we) did to make him this way. Or perhaps more correctly, what we didn’t do to dissuade his pickiness.

I know that as a very small child I ate terribly until I was adopted and then my diet picked up for the better, but I don’t know what combination of persuasions contributed to the change. We had a garden growing up and it was often that we had meals designed solely around what came from the garden. You either ate it or you went hungry. There was no, “Well, you can have some peanut butter toast if you don’t want this” like there is now at our house (by my wife and it’s just not an argument that I want to get into most nights). I suppose the biggest difference is that with the exception of the time when we were at school, we ate what mom cooked...period. The menu was by her, and it was from her that all food came. We weren’t allowed to graze the refrigerator at will like kids today seem to.

But with today’s dual-income family-like ours-it’s become nearly impossible for parents to completely control their child’s food intake and I suspect therein lies the root of the problem. As long as there is someone else willing to let my child eat junk (like the 4 p.m. choco-chip cookie at daycare), I’ll not be able to enforce good eating habits at home. I also wonder if I’ll be able to keep my youngest son’s good eating habits or if he too will go down that rosy path of snacks and juice so loved by my oldest. I’m betting the latter.

But I would like to hear from others about ways to get kids to eat better. We’ve tried hiding things in other things, like carrots in muffins and tricks like that, but what it comes down to is that they A) are wary of anything new, so making some cool looking tasty treat that’s really healthy won’t work because they are immediately suspicious and won’t put it in their mouth and B) not big into sauces. Both of these ideas seem to be the staple of the majority of the “Get your kids to eat” meal cookbooks on the market today.

So, if you have any suggestions, or even want to share your experience, I’d love to hear it.

I love movies. I mean, growing up an only child, my imagination hinged on what I’d seen or read, and movies in the 70s and 80s were the best. Superman, Indiana Jones and Luke Skywalker were my favorite heroes and I spent hours pretending I was one of them picking off the bad guys and saving the planet.

There are also movies I enjoy seasonally now as an adult because of memories they evoke from my childhood. Dead Poet’s Society is one of my all-time favorite must-see movies in the fall. I also enjoy “A Christmas Story” because I too had a Red Ryder BB gun like the one the movie’s main character, Ralphie, coveted. Every year I can’t wait to see that movie come on because when it does, then I know it’s really Christmas time.

But this year, something funny happened. A Christmas Story didn’t air until Christmas eve and then they did a 24-hour marathon of it. I caught it on the night of Christmas as my wife and I lay in bed reflecting on the day’s events and all the glory and excitement our oldest son found in the presents and the exuberance. Now normally, I sit there and I revel in the shared emotions and sentiments between Ralphie and myself over the BB gun and I think back fondly over the cold winter mornings and the turkey cooking in the oven and for me that’s what makes the movie memorable.

But this year, what really caught my attention was the movie’s father figure. He was a working-class kinda guy who was prone to swearing when properly motivated and who, despite loving his children immensely, obviously found the whole father thing a bit wearing at times and sometimes appeared as if he just wanted to opt-out of whatever it was that was going on around him. I noticed how in the movie on Christmas morning, he and his wife each enjoyed a glass of wine while the kids opened gifts. And then at the end of the movie when the kids were all in bed and the happy couple sat in the dark watching the snow fall, they enjoyed another glass. I’d never noticed that before and I thought to myself, “What an odd thing to notice.”

It occurred to me then that I’ve made a transition. Oh, I still enjoy watching Ralphie try not to put his eye out with his BB gun, but what I mostly identified with this year was watching parents nearly 25 years ago go through the same trials and emotions I find myself warring over on a daily basis. Sure it’s just a movie, but a smidge of truth makes all the difference.