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.