About this column:
An Ormewood Park dad's take modern parenthood, 'Hey, Dad!" appears every other Sunday.My spouse is by training a hormones (haha) and brain development expert, and she has put forward to me the following theory: Toddlers are the only people who express themselves fully on airplanes. By extension (and this she also points out), adults in this scenario are like repressed toddlers, hands like vices on preferably both armrests, in an attempt not to give voice to their urges and their anger while on board. But then afterwards all bets are off. There we have it: a theory of adulthood in three sentences. From here I suppose this column could veer, as it often has, in many directions: …
It's time once again, for the great migration. Here on the south side of I-20, where children are chronicled on the Web, the elder leaves pre-K and plows on into life. Meanwhile the younger leaves behind a pair of long-beloved teachers. The usual. So why worry? These kids, mine, live mostly steady lives, without much visible external trauma or tornado or flood. Personally though, I am a firm believer that everybody's traumas are tucked away in a box about the same size. What you have lived through, and how you carry yourself, determines the relative weight of the traumas in the box. Or less …
What do dads do when they're not being dads? Dangerous question, I know. The answer could be anything. Parents are not the sum of their parenting hours, right? Right?? Well fine then, let's do a thought experiment. People can be fun, or not fun. But are kids people? Assume the following: I spend most waking hours with computers. Kids — this is known — kids have brains. Ok! Now let's re-imagine life a moment, shall we? Child wakes up cranky and aggravated. Dad flips child's power switch off and on. Child remains cranky and aggravated. Dad calls system administrator (their mom, in my case), …
My kids make God-awful strange noises. They do. I may have even said it before. My preoccupation with this is probably no surprise to regular readers of this column. Also it's probably best that my collection of examples of noises, and instructions for them, is space-limited. But I've often wondered, and even with feverish anticipation, how this interest might rub off on my kids. Consider, that in my collection, there's this one book about "extra-normal" vocal sounds. In this context extra-normal means, not normal, if that makes sense. Regardless, my three-year old has clearly read this cover…
I'm grateful my parents are not-far away and travel a bit. All the more so because, they sometimes take along a child. I'm not certain how this works, and I'm not 100 percent sure that I'd do the same. Possibly this accounts for their often not-offering to take the child. So, how is it that people decide to take small children with them when they travel? One friend, nameless here, spoke to me recently, in momentary absence of his spouse. Imagine here if you will or can, your own preferred 28-hour flying expedition with a 1.5-year-old. He didn't have much time and he didn't waste it. The words…
It can be no surprise, here, that my kids say things I don't care to understand. Part of it is, I appear to have blown out a little bit of my hearing, eh? Part of it is that my kids speak very quietly, as if confiding some awful secret. In addition, they are clearly always worried that if I hear them, I can say "no." And then last, it does appear the old man is losing it, slipping a little, or a lot. For example, I ask my younger child to share me a pita chip, from the back seat. As it turns out, his discourse on pita chips is not to be interrupted. If I could hear it, I might learn …
Okay so, it's six in the morning and both kids are awake. "Dad, can I have an icicle," asks the younger. "He means a Popsicle," explains the elder. I say: "Not before breakfast." Because, seriously? Popsicles? I add: "We're making waffles." This is not the winning strategy I hope for. "Breakfast is gross," says the elder, "and I don't want waffles." "Go wake your mother," I suggest. Younger: "I want a waffle." Sister: "No, you don't." Younger: "I want a lollipop." "Dad, we want a lollipop. Or else a Popsicle." Solidarity. What I'm working through here is: young children have a curious way …
So, I'm a music-oriented person. As such, it's probably not surprising that I think of my kids as "musical" as well. Never mind that their favorite sounds by far are burping and farting. It's all music to me. The five-year-old can whistle well for her age, for example. She even tries to imitate the birds in the yard. I'm not sure I could tell you which. But I find it charming. At the same time, she's begun to have opinions about music, and I find it irksome. Five years in, and cranky old man dad "begins" to emerge. This is worth additional consideration, because my taste in music is …
One side effect of herding two energetic children towards elementary school age is that, weekends, I find myself in inflatable jumpy gyms on a regular basis. As a result we eat a lot of lunches there or, en route. That's just the way it is. Children, as you are perhaps aware, are said to eat on a regular basis. They are carbon-based life forms. They metabolize. This is fact. Some eat better, some worse, some accept strict limits on their Red #5, and others, inexplicably, do not. But eat they do. Science tells us so. And yet no. No, no, no. In my world there is one child, three, who eats well…
So, I'm told on occasion that my kids look like me. I'm a biological parent so, this is basically a relief. But hearing it again recently, a question comes to mind. Namely: What is it we really see, when we see ourselves in our kids? I'm pretty sure this happens to everybody. We see that our kid is, I dunno, musical, well-spoken, spits a long way, whatever, and we say: See? Just like me at that age. (This is followed by a smile, or snort, depending on audience.) And so yes, that's pretty ordinary, to-be-expected and maybe also charming in the sense of, you love them. But what about the harder…
I'm relieved that both my kids are in very good schools. That took some doing. My eldest, which is to say my daughter, attends an APS Pre-K. Often when I tell acquaintances or even friends about this school — that it's public, intown, very strong, stupendous principal — they stare. If I may use an old-fashioned term, they stare like I'm an idiot. In part this is because I'm a dad. People expect little of dads. But then I find that even other dads have this going on. People literally wait for me to wake up. "Tell me if you decide to come back to this side of town." When we enrolled my …
I haven't rollerskated since I was a kid, but it's the same. The cheese nachos are unchanged. The skates still have four wheels. It's a school trip but we drive. When we arrive, everybody is already there. There is one person behind me. There are a hundred in front, or maybe more. We get in line and it's slow. My daughter is very hungry. She is five with a fast metabolism. That can make her cranky. In this case though, she's very curious about rollerskating. I manage to steer her back to the car, to put on her heaviest jacket and eat some cashews. Now there are fifteen more people in line. We…
