Now You Are Speaking My Language

I am a simple man. My wife, on the other hand, is able to navigate the complexities of child psychology. She has been reading a parenting book, one I consider very insightful. Its premise is that parenting should not be about commanding, threating, begging, or bribing. Rather, parenting should provide children with acceptable choices, like "If you throw the spoon on the floor again, you'll have to find another way to eat your food."

The idea is great. The problem for me is the implementation. When it comes time to try this new form of discipline, I can't think of a good choice. I feel put on the spot a little. I feel like my kids see right through our little plot to shape their young minds and stand ready to resist me or ignore me if I blow it. My mind goes blank, I blow it, they do resist and ignore, and I get frustrated.

After some discussion with my wife, she suggested picking one area to work on at a time, like dinner choices or bedtime choices. One idea at a time? "Now you're speaking my language!" I said.

Daddy!

After passing something to my daughter at dinner, she began calling my name. I couldn't respond right away, because I was in the middle of something else. I figured she needed something else. She began to yell, "Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!!!" I looked over and said, "What is it?"

She sweetly said, "Thank you, Daddy."

Daddy's Been Whacked Too

Shortly before dinner, I heard a loud cry in the dining room. Our son was balancing a large plastic straining bowl on top of the rice maker and it fell over and smacked him in the face. Normally, I would comfort him then say, "That's why we don't do that." My wife reminded me that I am an "I told you so" kind of Dad, so instead I told him, "When I was a boy, I used to try and balance things like that. Sometimes they would fall and whack Daddy on the nose too." To my surprise, he busted up laughing. Then he ran to Mommy and repeated to her word-for-word what I just told him. I guess the thought of me getting whacked in the nose when I was a kid was enough to make the pain go away.

Competing Agendas

We spent the day at the beach. This was the first time my children had ever seen the ocean. Of course, I wanted this to be a fun experience for them, and I wanted to spend the day playing with them. Right from the beginning, our eldest wanted to play in the water, our toddler wanted to play in the sand, our baby wanted to take a nap, and my wife wanted me to calm her down to sleep. Apparently, everyone had their own agenda. Needless to say, the though of letting my plans slip away made me impatient when my wife asked for help with calming the baby to sleep.

Its a sad irony that the result of holding tightly to my own plan was that I was making it harder for my family to really enjoy their experience. A happy irony is that, after helping the baby sleep, I still had plenty of time to carry out my plan to play with the kids, and I have the sunburn to show it.

"I'm Running Away!"

I didn't realize three-year olds even knew what it meant to run away. I think it came from a book we read with him. What could possibly bring him to the point of wanting to run away? The listening chart was still pretty new, and our son was working really hard all day long to get his listening points. Suddenly, I came home and, without recognizing how well he did that day, criticized him for picking on his sister. It broke his three-year old heart. He was so distraught that he cried and yelled, "I'm running away!"

It reminds me of the day I came home from work and my wife had slaved all day cleaning the apartment until it was gleaming. But the first thing I commented on was a jacket that had fallen off the hanger in the closet.

It is hard to reverse the impact of criticism given where praise was due.

Which of These Clerks is Not Like the Others

Wednesday afternoon, I was out to lunch with the other clerks. It would have been easy to see which one of us had three kids at home--he was the only one carrying a lunch bag.

Bath Time When Daddy is On His Own

Children have a sixth sense. Somehow they know when Mommy is leaving Daddy alone to bath them and put them to bed, and they mutiny. After one such night, I think I've learned why:

Our toddler daughter went from angelic to screaming in about a nanosecond when I put her in the bath. At first I thought the water was too hot, so I took her out and asked her, "Hot?" The water felt perfect, but I put cold water in to humor her and cupped it in my hand for her to feel. But, she screamed again when I put her back in, and she was trying to climb back out. I was about to lose my patience with her, but then she held up her knee and foot. It finally dawned on me that she had scratches on her knee and foot from playing outside and was scared to get them wet. After I kissed her knee and foot, she went happily into the bath.

I wish I could say that I learned my lesson the first time, but that would be lying. Our son was next in line for bath, but he refused to take his clothes off. I began the infamous book countdown, but he just cried and cried. Luckily my wife hadn't walked out the door yet, so she came up and explained to me that he too had a scratch on his knee and was afraid to get it wet. I decided to swallow my pride, apologize for losing my patience, and let him have his books back.

Nights alone with three kids are truly a test of patience. Hopefully my kids will be patient with me as I learn to be patient and listen a little better.

The Dinner Promise

Homemade bread is beyond a three-year old's ability to resist. So, when he neglected the rest of his dinner to eat one piece after another, we gave him the ultimatum, "Finish your dinner or no more bread!" Desperate for me, he begged and pleaded, "Please, I promise to eat my dinner if you give me one more piece first."

We thought this was as good a time as any to teach him the importance of keeping promises, so I said, "I trust you. You made a promise. Promises are very important, and if you don't keep your promise, I won't believe them anymore." Then I gave him more bread and waited to see what would happen.

To our surprise and relief, a few minutes later he showed me his empty plate. He kept his promise. We were so excited, in fact, that we made a little celebration out of it. Hopefully, he never forgets how good it felt to keep his promise at dinner.

Shortcuts to Impressing Daddy

Coming home from work to nightly "show and tell" is one of the highlights of my day. Our oldest has been sounding out words on his own. I'm amazed me every time, and he knows it. Apparently wanting to really blow me away after work, he pulled out a book and starting reading it to me. The book was "The Wheels on the Bus," and I think he was hoping that I'd forgotten that he's had it memorized for a while now.

Not sure how to react, I enthusiastically congratulated him for singing the song so well. But, I am realizing that he sometimes thinks that it's better to show me what I want to see or to tell me what I want to hear than to risk disappointing me. I need to do better at conveying to him that shortcuts aren't necessary, that I am never disappointed with this efforts, and that I am always impressed with him because he is always trying. Perhaps I should show some excitement over his failures, because those are important to learning too.

Tortoise and "I Told You So"

My wife pointed out that sometimes I'm an "I told you so" kind of person. I guess it sometimes seems the most logical way to drive a point home. The following experience helped me realize how harmful "I told you so" can be:

We've always told our kids not to jump around the tortoise (named Walker) when we take him outside to walk around, but they always do. Our oldest got too excited and accidentally landed right on the tortoise. I was inside feeding our baby when I heard my wife let out a horrified gasp. I ran outside to see her examining  the tortoise, who had retreated into his shell, wondering if he was dead.

A feeling of anger welled up inside both my wife and me, and I knew both of us wanted to shout, "I told you this would happen if you jump around Walker!" But, I looked over at our son, sobbing and saying, "I'm sorry Walker. I'm sorry Walker. I didn't mean to. I didn't mean to," and knew that a lecture was unnecessary and would probably crush him. I've never see our son so scared or so sincerely sorry.

So instead, we exercised all the self-control we could muster, put our arms around our son, and tried to comfort and reassure him. Walker seems fine now. My wife caught my son as he landed on the tortoise and probably broke some of the fall. My wife's family had the same thing happened to their tortoise years ago, and he died the next day. We don't know what will happen to Walker, but if he should die, we're glad we resisted the urge to say, "I told you so."

Affirmation

As anyone who has read "The Five Love Languages" knows, men need affirmation. Before falling asleep, my wife turned to me and said, "I think the listening chart is working. Have you noticed that our son wants to do everything with you now?" That is the best affirmation I could ask for.

Baby Cereal

I am an organized man. I hate messes. I am also passionate about food. I hate wasting it. Pouring a spoonfuls of baby cereal into my baby's mouth one second only to see it dribbled, spit, gurgled, sneezed, coughed, catapulted, laughed, sighed, babbled, or smiled back out the next second is the kind of thing that gives guys like me an anxiety attack.

If I didn't love my wife and know that this is important to developing certain motor skills (skills that now I'm especially anxious for our baby to develop), I would refuse to do it.

Leaving the Gentle Slope

Ever wondered why Dads sometimes come home seeming tired, sensitive, or foreign to planet Earth? Ironically, I've never paused to figure it out until this week. Based on this week's experience, I have a theory that may provide at least one answer to this question:

My confidence comes in part from my ability to achieve. When beginning this clerkship, I felt the achievement of getting here. That feeling continued through the "honeymoon" stage, when the learning curve was still very gentle and eased me in to a new environment and a new routine.  This week, however, the honeymoon ended and the learning curve turned into a steep climb. The bench memo I've been working on is nothing like the first one.  It's much longer and more complex, and I've rewritten it several times. That, in combination with the fact that I am new to and struggling to master the areas of law addressed in this case, extinguished that sense of achievement.

I don't think there is anything wrong with feeling that way or letting my wife and kids see me feel that way. It's good for them to see Dad struggle too. However, I noticed this week that without openly explaining to them--yes, even to the kids--why I felt this way, they misinterpreted my behavior as a lack of interest in them. In some cases, I think their feelings got hurt.

So, I need to be better at explaining. They are smart enough to understand.  And, because English is still kind of a second language to kids (actions of love being their first language),  I've made sure to get some wrestling in before bed too.

The Judge Has Spoken

Every ambitious young law graduate wants to impress his or her boss and quickly contracts the do-it-all syndrome, meaning they have a hard time saying "no" to anything the boss needs or even suggests, even if it is extracurricular.

I am no exception. The judge teaches an evening course at a local law school on Thursdays and invited his clerks to attend. My brilliant co-clerk from Harvard has been going every week. I, on the other hand, hesitated at the invitation for a couple of reasons. First, my commute is an hour long and my wife would be flying solo with three kids during dinner, baths, and bed time. Second, husbands who don't check with their wives before doing something like that have a death wish.

I looked at my co-clerk with a tinge of jealousy and felt unsure what to do. Perhaps sensing my hesitation, the judge--a big family man--said, "If I had three little ones at home, I wouldn't spend my evenings going to this class." I appreciated his humor and the wisdom of his answer. It reassured me that I don't have to "do it all" to impress him. 

"I'm a big boy now. I don't need to read books."

Uh oh! My son wanted to go with Mommy to the store tonight so badly that he was happy not only to give up reading books tonight but also for the next few nights. In my effort to dissuade him from giving up books by trying to point out that I'm a big boy and I love to read, this is the conversation that ensued:

"Is Daddy a big boy?"

"Yes."

"Does Daddy read books?"

"No."

I couldn't believe it! This conversation took me back to a conversation I had with my neighbor yesterday. We were talking about some of the things we do to recharge the batteries, like taking personal time to read. Whereas I typically do those things before the kids wake up or after they go to bed, my neighbor consciously does them when the kids can see it, so that they can learn to do it to. That insight hit me hard when talking to my son tonight, who thinks that big boys stop reading because he doesn't see me do it. I'm sure this also applies to developing talents, doing service, etc. The natural tendency is to drop everything for them during the short time we're together, but maybe they need to see us take time for ourselves too.

Little Bodies, Big Emotions

A few weeks of steady emotional outbursts from my toddler has caused me to pause and think about why this happens--I can't really do much else. My conclusion is that it is unfair to call her "emotional." My theory is that adults are big balloons and toddlers are little balloons. You can put them on the same water faucet with the same water pressure, but the little balloons will explode. That may be an oversimplification, but it works for a simple man.

Who Eats First?

Dad comes home from work tired and starving. Mom leaves him dinner, a toddler, and a baby, while she takes off with the oldest to do a favor for a friend. Baby is hungry and crying. Toddler is hungry and crying. Dad is still starving and wondering whether to cry too. Who eats first?

Answer: The toddler, because she can feed herself while Dad figures out what to do next.

As between Dad and the baby, who eats first? There are two options as far as I can tell:

Option 1: The "love conquers all" approach suggests Dad feed the baby first because his love for her should be strong enough to cool the emotional lava that is swelling to the point of erupting into words and actions he'll later regret.

Option 2: The "in-flight safety" approach suggests that during rapid changes in cabin pressure Dad should first place the oxygen mask on himself before assisting others. This ensures everyone's safety by sustaining the assist-ability of those in the best position to assist. This approach may require distracting the baby with a toy or holding her on my lap.

I've tried a mix before, or the love-conquers-most/in-flight-survival approach, which consists of eating something quickly to preserve some sanity, then making a bottle and holding it for the baby in the bouncy seat with one hand while finishing my dinner with the other. Although it buys a little time, it can quickly exhaust any remaining patience because, should baby choose not to tolerate my divided attention, both of us could end up a mess. Most of the time, I strongly recommend the strict "in-flight safety" approach because it ensures that nobody is harmed on the emotional journey we call dinner.

The Haunted Date

Because of the move and getting settled in, we just barely got around to celebrating our anniversary. Needless to say, we were both excited to go on a date. Our sister agreed to watch the kids, and my wife and I went downtown to see some of the sights in DC and have a nice dinner at a Brazilian restaurant. In all, we had 5-6 hours without kids. Even so, most of our conversations focused on the kids. I don't know how, from the babysitter's house near Baltimore, our kids can still control our minds and haunt us when we are miles away in downtown DC. But they do, and, scarier still, we enjoy it.

Little Big Foot

You'd think hard-working parents have a right to sleep in on a Saturday morning, unless you are a three-year old whose paradigm of having his parents up and at 'em before he wakes up has just been shattered. We were awaken this morning by our three-year old son's heavy footsteps stomping up and down the hall outside our bedroom. Since we were just waking up, the din of those footsteps sounded more like a sasquatch than a three-year old. We invited him to hop in bed with us only to be rebuffed and rebuked with a stern, "It's morning already!"

Ironically, both of us woke up in kind of a bad mood too, so this struck us as funny. Feeling that we were laughing at his expense, he became more frustrated. But, we've learned over time that this is nothing some hugs and tickling can't cure. All of us ended up feeling better after that.

"I Can Tell When You're Pretending"

While working on the computer after the kids went to bed, my wife began telling me about a breakthrough with our exceptionally emotional toddler daughter. She discovered that our daughter is happy throughout the day when my wife takes about 10-15 minutes to simply snuggle with our daughter when she wakes up. Given that a usual day consists of half a dozen bona fide tantrums before her afternoon nap, this really was a breakthrough. Tired, with half my attention focused on what I was doing on the computer, I briefly looked up and said, "That's great!"


Wrong answer! She replied, "I can tell when you're pretending to be excited about something."

I realized the strange irony in the fact that the minute our kids are in bed, I often go straight to my computer to get stuff done and to email friends while my wife is sitting right next to me wanting to talk about her day.

Just before bed, my wife did admit, "Don't worry. I do the same thing to you sometimes."

Three Square Disasters a Day

Labor Day weekend helped me to make a psychological breakthrough. I was able to spend a lot of time with my family at the Air and Space Museum, at the park, at home, and at the meal table. Being more conscious of how and when I lose my patience, I realized that of the things listed above, only one was likely to make me lose it--meals. They begin and end with emotion, and only some food ends up in their mouths in the interim, while the rest ends up on their faces, on the table, on the floor, or on far away walls to be discovered sometime in the future.

Perhaps prior to meals I can give myself a pep talk to do what we sometimes have the kids do when they get frustrated--count to 10 very slowly.

First Day of Preschool

I remember that sense of pride I felt surge up from my feet to my head (which my wife says is growing) when I watched my son score his first goal in soccer during his first season and block his first goal in the second season. That pride seemed very minor compared to the pride I felt when my wife sent me pictures of my son's first day in preschool. I forwarded them to the judge and everyone in his chambers. I talked to my son on the phone when he got home. I asked him all about it when I got home from work. And, just in case he still didn't know how proud I was, I made sure to tell him before he went to bed and to tell him how I sent his pictures around the office today. He was probably thinking, "Dad, it's only preschool, not Princeton!" Right now, it feels the same.

Love Means Braving Mosquitoes

Today was a come-home-to-"Please take the kids!" day. Because this is mosquito season, my normal reaction to this request would be rolling my eyes, sighing loudly, pouting pathetically, or anything else I could do to avoid doing it. But, I could tell it was a hard day for my wife, including a broken towel rack from our son pretending he was an orangutan. I decided that I loved my wife more than I hated mosquitoes, and we went out to play. Only 5 bites on my leg to show for it. Not too bad a price to pay for a happy wife.

"Thanks for noticing!"

This post is really about something that happened with my wife, not my kids. But, being a good corporate husband is important to being a corporate dad, so I'm including it.

My wife told me that she wanted to try feeding our baby girl some sweet potatoes. I expected we'd be buying little sweet potato baby food jars at the store. I walked into the kitchen around lunch time to find my wife making the baby food from sweet potatoes she had just baked. I thought that was pretty cool, so I told her.

To my surprise, she quickly turned around, her eyes lit up, and she gave me a kiss and a hug and said, "Thanks for noticing!"

It's ironic that I used to feel like I had to do back flips in the kitchen to get her attention. I like this noticing thing.

"I Don't Want to Go to Church!"

The above quote is from my little boy. He informed us of his feelings only a short time before we had to get in the car and go. Church starts at 9 am, and despite our best intentions, my wife and I sleep in as long as possible then rush to get the kids ready in time to make it to church right at 9 am (usually a few minutes after). This was an inopportune time for our son to make this declaration. What can you do?

We must have gotten more rest than usual the night before, because instead of dismissing it and rushing him into the car, we actually stepped back and realized what our son has been through with this move to DC. We stopped and listened while he told us that he misses his old primary friends, that he didn't want to make new friends (except at preschool), and that he wants to be included more in his new primary class.

We did not solve the problem. We didn't know how. We just listened. When he was done telling us how he felt, he happily got ready for church, and we still made it right at 9 am (actually, a few minutes after). Although he was nervous to go to his primary class at first, he was happy and excited when we picked him up at the end. Maybe he just needed someone to listen.

Universal Language

Communication with your children is one of the essential parenting skills. My eldest speaks English. My middle speaks toddler. And my youngest speaks baby. Figuring out how to communicate hasn't been easy . . . until now.

I have discovered a universal language that communicates to them my love and communicates to me theirs. It's called wrestling. It has almost become an evening tradition.

Illogical Parenting Works

As a law graduate, I tend to allocate my attention to my kids using logic. More of my attention goes to my eldest and youngest because they are at developmental stages that require it. Our middle child, however, is at a developmental stage where she does not speak very much and plays well alone. She doesn't get as much attention because she does not seem to need it.

When she dumped out every drink we gave her today and persisted in screaming and yelling, I think she was saying, "Dad, you got it wrong. Give me more attention!" The problem is, her language skills consist of only a few words and a lot of babbling and yelling and I don't know how to communicate with her very well. 

I decided to do something illogical. I babbled and yelled back. She stopped acting up and we both started laughing. By the end of the night, we were best friends.

Benched at Bedtime

You might have noticed a theme emerging early in this blog: I am not a very patient person. That may be why my son prefers having Mommy put him to bed at night, in fact, I'm sure of it. Well, I've been making efforts lately, and I think my son has noticed some progress because he wanted me to put him to bed on Tuesday night. That is a really big deal.

All went smoothly, PJs, brushing teeth, prayers, bed time stories, etc. He even told me during the last story that he was getting tired. He was set to go to bed, and I was set to get some other stuff done, when Mommy came back home from the store with new batteries for his keyboard. He's been so excited to play the keyboard that he wanted the batteries in right away. Sure, no problem. Then, he wanted to play it softly while we read a little more. Okay, I can handle that. It was time to go to bed, and I think he could tell that I was getting anxious to get some things done. But, he wanted to play one more song for me before he laid down.

He was watching and waiting for my usual and firm response, "No. It's late. Go to bed." I noticed he was watching, and that he was caught off guard when instead I said, "Okay. I would enjoy a song, but you must promise that after the song you will go to bed." He played the song and went to bed a happy kid.

Although he's still requesting Mommy for bed time, I have a feeling he'll call me up from the bench again soon.

Newton's First Law of Motion Revisited

Newton's first law of motion--every action has an equal and opposite reaction. I think Newton's first law of motion is wrong as it relates to parenting. Almost every night the kids are excited about something they want to tell me or show me and I have a tendency to half-heartedly respond, "That's nice. Now run along." Whether I do that because I'm tired or just used to nightly "show and tell," I noticed something different last night, a scientific breakthrough, if you will.

My son had been practicing his numbers on a piece of paper and my daughter was sporting new shoes, and both of them were dying to show me. The reality is that the numbers were pretty similar to other scribbles he's shown me before and girl shoes just aren't exciting to dads. But their big eyes told me that if I couldn't find some way to show genuine excitement, they would never be happy again.

It really only took a second of undivided attention and effort to find something in what they showed me to be excited about and to express it. Several of the scribbles really looked like numbers--he was making genuine strides--and it was amazing that he would even choose to practice them on his own. My daughter also looked very cute in her new shoes, they were very sparkley.

When they saw my genuine excitement, they lit up with pride in themselves. In fact, they were so content that they went right to bed that night without any hassle--like perfect angels.

My scientific conclusion, therefore, is that a genuine reaction can produce positive action. Sorry Newton, you got it backwards.