For simplicity’s sake, I’m combining the statements of both daughters (currently 4 and 3).
Kids: I don’t like much boys.
Me: Why don’t you like boys?
Kids: I don’t know.
Me: Oh.
Kids: You’re a boy! We love you! We don’t like any other boys except we love you.
And that’s the way it better stay for at least 15 years.
Three years ago today, at 11:48pm, I wrote these amazingly insightful words:
Check it out…
Friday, December 9th, 2005
Looks like I am officially blogging. I am too cool for words. (Ironic, isn’t it.)
Thusly did this, my first blogging experience, begin. Pretty sad, really, but there you have it. Now here we are, three years and over 400 posts later, and I figure it’s about time I looked back to see if I’ve ever written anything worth reading. (I figure I must have said something worthwhile at some point. It can’t be complete inanity, can it?)
To that end, here is a list of the posts I’ve written over the last three years that I think are worth a second look, roughly broken by category.
Comics (not much to choose from here, really)
Corporate World/Learning (there’s too much overlap between these to justify separating them for this purpose)
Movies & TV (includes Reviews & Sci-Fi)
Music
Hmm… honestly this category is pretty new and I like almost all the posts. If I had to choose just three though:
Other
Parenting
Personal Finance
Technology
Well, what do you know… that list turned out longer than I thought. I probably wasn’t as judicious as I should have been in a couple categories, but I really think most of those posts don’t get the traffic they deserve – especially the Corporate World/Learning set, though I know the audience for that is limited.
Anyway… I hope you click through to at least a couple of them. It’s been a fun experience to write this stuff for the last three years, and I hope it hasn’t been too boring for you (but then, no one’s forcing you to read this… unless you’re my wife).
Also, if you have any suggestions for things you’d like to see here in the future, please let me know in the comments. I really do like feedback.
If you’re not a parent or don’t want to talk about the logistics of sickness, move along… nothing to see here.
You’ve been warned.
So after Thanksgiving dinner was over and we were all about to head home, my nephew got sick. Really sick. Suddenly and explosively. And voluminously. It was very surprising, so for a second everyone just stood there not sure what to do. (I feel bad for my nephew, too. Not only is it not a lot of fun to be sick, but to have your entire extended family standing there staring at you when you do couldn’t have helped.)
When people got over the shock and reacted, and it was obvious it wasn’t over yet, the first snap decision that had to be made was where to take him to continue his purge. It’s here that I want to dwell today.
So the options were:
On the way home, my wife and I were debating the best action to have taken. My vote was for the kitchen. Her vote was to stay where he was (which, incidentally, is what happened). We both had valid arguments to back up our positions.
My position is: contain as much of the mess as possible with minimal movement and maximum “cleanability.” That means getting to a toilet, sink, or trash can as quickly as possible. In this case, given that the kitchen was one room away, I’d have gone with the kitchen sink. The kitchen trash can was also a possibility, but given the situation it was probably full. Speed is not the hallmark of someone getting sick, especially a child, so it would be the adult’s job to move him/her, even if that means picking them up or dragging them (safely, of course).
My wife’s position is to stay where he was because the mess is already there after the first explosion. Better to clean one location than two.
Her problem with my position is that there’s a real chance the next spew could happen in transit, plus she thought there would be splashback that could escape the sink and cause a larger cleanup. Both valid points, but I stand by my preference.
My problem with her position is that you’re creating a deeper, and probably more significant, mess in the one location. I’d rather clean smaller messes in more locations than a huge, saturated mess in one. It’s also more likely that a significant amount of material will end up coating the sick person and their clothes, which completely grosses me out. As the sick person, one of the worst things to have happen was finally to be done with the unpleasantness and then get a nose full of soiled shirt wiping itself on my hair on its way by. Getting to a container minimizes, if not completely avoids that problem.
So, I leave it to you, the brave few who got through this post, to settle our dispute. Which way would you handle the situation? Vote below, and support your decision (or propose other options) in the comments.
Loading …It’s 2am. I’m finally about to go to sleep. Before I can get into the bedroom, though, I hear my daughter whimpering in her bed. Usually, this means she has to go to the bathroom, but not always. So I go in and nicely ask what’s wrong, at which point she thrashes a bit before settling her face into the bedsheets and making what to untrained ears would be a moan. I know what she’s saying is she wants mommy. So as I sit down beside her, I tell her, “Mommy’s asleep, what’s wrong? Do you have to go to the bathroom?”
Many kicks in the leg later, I can hear the rumbling in her chest that is about to erupt into a full-on meltdown. I decide to just pick her up and take her to the bathroom – a tactic that has worked in the past. As soon as I touch her, it’s as if I broke her pinky finger off and stabbed her with it. I’m not exaggerating. The screams are bloodcurdling. But I go ahead anyway and take her into the bathroom, almost loosing her once when her thrashing throws me off balance (I think my foot bumping into the stool next to the sink may finally be enough noise to wake my wife). When I put her down next to the toilet, she runs into the corner, still screaming and won’t let me touch her. My wife, obviously thinking there’s at least one body part broken, comes flying into the hallway, and finally the little banshee runs past me and grabs my wife’s legs, taking the screaming down a notch.
I leave the room at that point, allowing them to continue being with each other. The silence comes within 30 seconds. Then suddenly they’re both back in bed.
Me? I’m all hopped up on adrenaline and really mad because of my complete and utter helplessness in this situation. But I have nowhere to direct all this anger so I’ve just gotta swallow it. And my wife’s mad at me because I’m mad.
This is not conducive to sleep, either.
So here I sit, typing up the story for you to read.
Does everybody go through this stuff?
As I mentioned in my last post, I’ve recently reconnected with a lot of friends from my high school youth group through the wonders of Facebook. It’s been a lot of fun. There are now over 40 of us, and over 150 pictures, many of which are proof that the 80’s should never return.
But all of those pictures are of teenagers having fun – even the couple that show us in serious mode in Bible studies. We were enjoying learning how to apply the Bible to our lives, and simply being with each other. But most of the pictures are of someone doing something odd or funny (there are a surprisingly high number of cross-dressing photos… almost all of which were part of skits). We had a lot of fun.
Predictably, this has had me reminiscing a lot about those days, and about what it felt like to be a teenager. It’s been a long time and I don’t think about it often. When I do, it’s usually the moments that make me cringe that come to mind. But in truth, it’s a mixed bag of experiences: awkwardness, isolation, triumph, and togetherness all collide in both messy and wonderful ways. I remember the excitement of what it felt like to have a crush on someone, yet be unable to act on it because of fear. I remember feeling inferior in every athletic experience I had (because I usually was), yet thrilled when I somehow pulled it all together to win a game against the top player or be a useful part of a winning play. I remember feeling completely alone in a crowd, until someone caught my eye and genuinely smiled, happy to see me.
Now I’m a father, and in my mind’s eye I’m watching my two daughters grow up to be teenagers. Right now they are two and three years old. They’re playing in the park with their friends. It struck me today that it’s likely that at least some of these same friends will still be around when they reach their teen years. In ten years, will they have a crush on one of the boys they’re playing with now? Will those friends feed or starve their sense of self-worth? Will they be sure enough of themselves to have fun acting goofy, or will they be too worried about what others will think?
Will they want to spend any time with me?
I’m getting ahead of myself. I know that. I can actually influence a lot of those situations with what I teach my girls and how I treat them. I look at those pictures on Facebook and I pray that my daughters will grow up to have the quality of friends and fun that I had.
For all you dad’s out there, and mine specifically, Happy Father’s Day.
Thanks for all you’ve taught us, thanks for all the fun we’ve had. Thanks for the trips to the parks, the encouragement, and the discipline. And most of all, thanks for not killing us when we put a hole through the car battery (that may only apply to my Dad…).
Thanks for the support and the love.
And now, a message from the younger generation…
“Can you tie this to my eyebrow?” [referring to a balloon]
After throwing a blanket over her own head: “POOF! She was gone.”
3-yr old: “You can’t tell me that!”
2-yr old: “Why?”
3-yr old: “You’re not a grown-up!”
2-yr old: “YES I AM!”
3-yr old: “NO YOU’RE NOT!”
2-yr old: “YES I AM!“
3-yr old: “YOU’RE NOT A GROWN-UP; YOU’RE IN A BOOSTER SEAT!!“
2-yr old: “What?”
3-yr old: “You’re in a booster seat. Look.”
2-yr old: “Oh.”
Were you paying attention in those psychology classes?
Do you remember the experiments where a rat was trained to press a lever to get food?
It’s amazing how relevant experiments on rats can be to parenting.
In pursuing my psychology degree, I took a lab where I had to perform that experiment myself. I had a rat of my own, which I named – very appropriately, I thought – Rat (hey, if it’s good enough for George of the Jungle, it’s good enough for me).
The first goal of the experiment was to get the rat to understand that pressing a lever meant getting food. There were other goals once that was accomplished, but let’s focus on that goal for now.
Rat was just not getting it. Either that, or he was just really, really stubborn. I spent many nights in that lab until well after midnight faithfully recording him doing nothing of interest (which eventually translated into a graph that crossed enough pages of graph paper to run the length of our dormitory hallway). Eventually, however, he started to get the picture. When he made a move toward the lever, I dropped him a food pellet. If he moved a little closer, he got another pellet. Brushed against the lever? Another pellet. Touched it intentionally? Another pellet. Pressed it completely? More pellets. This process took a long time – but when it worked, it worked. Eventually, getting him to stop pressing the lever (phase 2 of the experiment) was even harder.
That process of rewarding Rat for each progressive step closer to the goal is called “successive approximation.” At first, he didn’t have to press the lever to get food, he just had to look at the lever. Once he got that, he had to make progress toward the larger goal before he’d get his food. Looking at it was no longer enough. He had to move close to it. Eventually, he’s feeding himself by pressing the lever. This teaching method, it has been proven time and time again, works.
Flash-forward almost 20 years. I don’t think about Rat often. But I did today.
My three-year-old daughter has become a very picky eater. It’s gotten to the point that it’s commonplace for my wife to make two different dinners every night – one for “Little Mommy” and one for the rest of us. Last week we decided that would stop. Little Mommy was going to learn to eat what we gave her.
It didn’t go so well for the first 4 days. We had a complete meltdown just getting the compromised 1/8″ square piece of grilled cheese near her mouth. Much drama ensued at that meal. Food flew; screams were loosed. The next day we were visiting friends and despite some earnest attempts at cajoling on all of our parts, no progress was made by us parents (she succeeded in manipulating us, however, which was a setback). The following day we were back at it, though there was much less drama. Finally, today, at lunch, Rat came to mind.
Oddly, it was grilled cheese again. This time, instead of reducing the size of the task, my wife tried something different. She put some soy-butter, Little Mommy’s favorite – on a small part of the top of the sandwich. While that was promptly licked off, I decided to start eating crackers I knew Little Mommy liked. When she asked for one, I said “Sure. Just lick the sandwich – but not on the soy-butter part.” After some whining, she did it, and I gave her a cracker. The next step was to get her to eat just a bite of the sandwich to get another cracker. She couldn’t have gotten a smaller bite if she used a laser scalpel, but she did take a bite, so she got another cracker.
Now we’re at the breaking point. Lots of accolades went along with that last cracker. She’s all proud of herself. Now we push. “Okay, if you take four bites, you can have another cracker.” She likes counting, too, so we all counted the bites, which – without any prompting – got bigger, and bigger, until bite number 4 was actually too much to have in her mouth at once. But as I gave her the cracker, I knew we had finally prevailed. She herself suggested the next goal would be five bites, which she attacked with gusto. With almost nothing left to the sandwich, and praises all around, she had finally eaten the same lunch as everyone else.
I guarantee that without using that successive approximation of licking, to infinitesimally small bites, to larger bites, we’d still have no progress.
Have we won the war? Nope. We’ll probably be able to get her to eat grilled cheese again with minimal effort, but I’m sure that any other “new” food she tries will take at least some degree of that same process. But we now have a strategy that works. After 4 days of failure with alternate strategies (yelling, bribing, punishing, & others), I’m thrilled to be making progress.
Those who know me may assume my own daughter can also do this. She can’t. Yet.
Smart kid. 
What follows is a guest post from my wife, who has had a bit of a difficult week so far.
I have come upstairs to … get AWAY from our 2 and 3 year-olds. They’re eating lunch. Or that’s what they’re supposed to be doing. They’ve been sick for days now. It seems like a very long time. I’ve been up with one or both every night for 4 nights now. And I’m tired. And I must say my patience … um, well, I have none, today. We’ve been to the doctor and to the pharmacy. And I’ve refereed more than my share of fights and arguments.
And just now I was sitting up here trying not to hear what’s going on downstairs in the kitchen. I’m confident that they can’t hurt each other ’cause they’re each in a highchair. But what they can do is argue . And they’ve been doing it well. “Sprite” (to continue on with Jeff’s given pseudonym) starts by saying, “It’s not fair!” (a phrase she’s picked up from a favorite video), and “Little Mommy” gets offended and says: “Yes, it is!” And then it just escalates into yelling: “IT’S NOT FAIR!” and “YES, IT IS!”
Sprite doesn’t really have anything in mind to protest. It’s just a phrase that probably reflects her feelings of wanting to fight. And Little Mommy doesn’t care what isn’t fair, she just needs to defend … whoever it is that needs defending. And so it goes. On and on. Until I call down and tell them that I’ll be down soon (though “soon” is being optimistic).
There are absolutely times that I feel like IT’S NOT FAIR! I love being a Mom. And most days I actually enjoy it. But when I haven’t gotten much sleep in 4 nights and have been tending to sick little people for at least as many days, I seriously want to have some time off.
And I have to say, right now as I’m typing this, Jeff has gone downstairs to forestall any mutinies, in order to allow me time to vent. So, here it is. Hopefully now I’ll be able to return to active duty and not completely lose my cool. I really do want to baby my sick babies and be a caring Mom.
Well … here goes.
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