Here! & Grumpy Dad

Perhaps it is the way I eat dinner (or the shear amount I eat), but lately my kids have been handing me food they do not want expecting me to do something with it.  What they want me to do, I am not sure. I doubt they even care.  But I care.  I care that my daughter thinks she can hand me a chewed-up fruit snack that didn't taste the way she was hoping or that my son will hand me a piece of apple skin that was hanging off of one of the slices he was snacking on.  My son also tried handing me chewed-up gum that has lost its flavor.  I've obviously been too accommodating because all they say when they try to hand me these goodies is "here!"  Not so fast!  I don't want them and they know where to put them.  I could tell my kids were a little taken aback when that is how I responded throughout the afternoon.  But, there isn't much else as fulfilling as watching your kids throw their own trash away.

Bedtime routine is almost always difficult, especially because our oldest gets distracted so easily when we need him to change into his PJs.  I've never seen anyone take so long.  He's either talking or trying to squeeze in some last-minute discoveries before its lights-out.  Usually, not alway, but usually, I'm pretty impatient about it and tend to pester him a little with questions I know he can't answer like, "Why aren't you getting dressed yet?"  It shouldn't be such an ordeal.  In fact, I can think of several ways we can make bedtime more fun.  The problem is that I am tired by then, not merely from work, but also from wrestling and playing with the kids.  In addition, I always have my hopes set on ticking off items on my to-do list or just having time to relax before it gets too late at night.  Most importantly, I want to spend some time with my wife, talking about our day our just goofing off.  Time to do those things at night is scarce and precious.  The pestering, however, is hard for the kids to understand and, I've concluded, is ineffective anyway.  I'm proud of my son who stopped me during my pestering to ask, "Daddy, why are you acting so grumpy with me today?"  After some thought, I realized he had asked a question I couldn't answer either.  So I sat on the bed, held out my arms, and gave him a hug.  I confessed, "You're right.  I'm being a grump, and I don't have a good reason.  I'm sorry."  Looking back, he was probably getting fed up with it.  I kept telling him at the beginning of dinner to stop whining and repeatedly asking for Mom to get his chicken ready--when he's hungry, he gets pretty impatient.  Then throughout dinner I nagged at him to eat over his plate because he was spilling rice--it's something I nag about on a daily basis.  Even so, I was impressed that he calmly confronted me, and even stumped me.  I bet I'd be less grumpy if I did a better job at choosing my battles.