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.