Author: Family Friendly Daddy Blog

Leave a comment Posted on Health, parenting

Is It So Wrong To Give Your Toddler Wine Or Whiskey?

October 13, 2012 at 10:06 pm , by 

22 months.

I’ll go ahead and take away any element of suspense for anyone who might think I have given my toddler son wine or whiskey in his tipsy cup… I mean, sippy cup.

Because I haven’t nor do I plan on it.

It’s just that within recent history in the blogosphere, the topic has kept resurfacing. Just this week, a toddler in Wales was accidently served whiskey at a restaurant.

Last year there was a toddler in Orlando who was served a sangria (wine punch) at an Olive Garden.

But for me, those stories were not really that interesting because I could see how easily that might happen in the hectic work environment of a restaurant. Fortunately, we hardly ever take our toddler son out to restaurants anyway, so it’s not really something I’m worried about.

However, there was one particular “giving alcohol to a toddler” story that I did feel was groundbreaking and challenging to the status quo. I’m referring to Slate magazine’s Should You Let Your Kid Try Wine?

The author’s answer, at least it pertains to his own household, seems to be an unapologetic yes. He promotes the idea of breaking the negative stigma of drinking alcohol by exposing his children to it like it’s not a bad thing for responsible people.

Like many of us Americans who grew up in a small Southern town, drinking was not only considered a sin by the moral majority, but the sale of alcohol was actually illegal where I grew up. In other words, it was a “dry county.”

I was conditioned to believe that in order to truly be a good Christian, you had to abstain from alcohol completely; even though Jesus’s first miracle was turning the water into wine at a wedding.

But something about me that you have to know is, I’m incredibly quick and curious to question cultural norms.

Fast forward to me graduating college, moving to Nashville, and now actually believing that having a beer (or glass of wine) a day is a good and healthy thing to do.

And while I definitely have my pet sins I struggle with, as we all do, I am convinced that drinking alcohol is not one of them.

So do I think it’s wrong to give my toddler wine, whiskey, or any other kind of alcoholic drink?

Yes.

Well, actually… I don’t know.

Because I couldn’t tell you for sure that the pain reliever I give my son has no alcohol in it. Actually, I’m assuming it does contain at least a small trace of alcohol.

All I really know is that when my son has a fever, I give him some FDA approved medicine.

Secretly, I wonder if it’s really just dressed-up alcohol to help him sleep through the night.

But even if it doesn’t contain alcohol, what is in it? Where do they get the ingredients from? Can I trust them?Should I trust them?

The fact that I don’t know actually troubles me more than worrying about my son being accidently served a Whiskey Sour in a restaurant, because I’m the kind of dad who would take the first sip of my kid’s drink just to make sure it hasn’t been poisoned, to begin with.

That is, if we actually took him to restaurants in the first place.

But we’re not that brave. The only way I could enjoy a meal out with my toddler is to sedate him with…

A fever-reducing medicine which may or may not contain alcohol.

Leave a comment Posted on Nostalgia, parenting, Storytelling

And Now My Son Will Only Have Girls For Friends…

October 11, 2012 at 10:56 pm , by 

22 months.

I had always hoped that my 500th Dadabase post would be about something at least a little bit monumental.

The good news is that in this 500thDadabase article of mine, I do have a milestone to write about in my son Jack’s life so far.

The bad news is, that milestone is that my son’s best (and only) friend who is a boy is moving to Texas at the end of the month, just a few weeks before Jack’s 2nd birthday.

That’s right. Henry, as recently featured in my recent Mall Toddlers post with Jack and Sophie, is bound for the Lone Star State.

It’s a difficult concept to grasp that The Three Musketeers are being split up.

Even stranger is the fact that Jack doesn’t really have any friends that are boys that are his age. He is surrounded by girls!

I wonder if Jack will suffer the same fate as me: I have some of the best guy friends I could imagine. The problem is that most of them don’t even live in the same state as me.

Henry has been a part of Jack’s life since January, which is nearly half of Jack’s lifetime. Not to mention, it was Henry who introduced Jack to Thomas the Train, which Jack is currently consumed with.

Obviously, in the process of Jack and Henry becoming friends, their parents have by default become friends as well.

So this is a big deal; even if more so for me than for Jack.

Of course, knowing that my own memory didn’t start until my 2nd birthday, and many people say that was abnormally soon, I have to assume Jack may not have clear memories of his adventures with Henry.

What if Jack only learns about Henry by reading about him years from now?

In other words, how weird would it be that Jack and Henry’s friendship was not at all recorded in their own minds, but instead only preserved, and for their sake, only existing, because of how I recorded and presented it?

In essence, I become the storyteller, the narrator, and the griot of my son’s life; not simply just for outsiders, but most of all, for my son.

 

Leave a comment Posted on parenting, Storytelling

My Toddler Son, The Pony Whisperer/Natural Laxative

October 11, 2012 at 9:27 pm , by 

22 months.

Jack loves animals, especially horses; so when he saw the chance to ride a pony for 5 bucks while at Lucky Ladd Farms this past weekend, he had me pony up the cash.

His gal pal Sophie Culpepper eagerly decided to join him too.

Fortunately, it actually went well!

Jack didn’t even try to get off his pony until it was the end of the ride anyway.

However, my son evidently does have the ability to speak to horses; in particular, he was able to put his pony at such ease that it relieved itself right there in the middle of the ride.

Jack’s horse created a half time show, in other words.

I love how the next day in the car ride back from his day care, Jack randomly started saying, with a dead pan delivery:

“Horse poop. Horse poop.”

An observer in this case might think my son suffers from Coprolalia, an occasional trait of Tourette syndrome, where a person swears involuntarily.

But no, that’s just Jack having flashbacks of good memories of the weekend.

Apparently, the first thing that came to mind was when the ride had to come to a quick intermission, thanks to Jack’s natural effect on the pony.

So yes, I’m happy my son had the opportunity to ride his first pony, but I  think it’s safe to say that all he and I will really remember about it was the horse taking a… load off.

 

Leave a comment Posted on Nostalgia, parenting

The Obligatory Facebook Picture Of Your Kid With A Pumpkin

October 11, 2012 at 12:05 am , by 

22 months.

Explaining to your toddler why you’ve taken him to go pick out a pumpkin is like trying to rationalize why the Wicked Witch in The Wizard of Oz dissolves when you throw a bucket of water on her.

(After all, what about humidity in the air? What does she drink? It bothers me that no one questions this!)

In other words, if you could rationalize it, then it would just be boring.

This past weekend we took our son Jack to Lucky Ladd Farms, a glorified pumpkin patch about a 30 minute drive from Nashville, along with my parents, Sophie’s family and Henry’s family.

I loved observing Jack and his pals as they pondered why we, the parents, were leading them to a bunch of weird orange balls with handles, encouraging them to pick their favorite to take home.

Jack picked one out, swinging it by its convenient handle, and there it flew, straight into a tree.

In that moment, the 1990s grunge band The Smashing Pumpkins suddenly seemed to have less of a random name than ever before.

Fortunately, the pumpkin stayed intact and I was able to take several taken pictures of my son with it for my obligatory facebook picture.

I’m assuming I don’t need to explain the inevitable autumn trend, as parents will be uploading a picture of their kid standing in a pumpkin patch or holding a pumpkin.

It’s kind of like a status symbol as a parent.

And unless we end up actually carving the pumpkin, or at least painting it, which I have a feeling we won’t, the pumpkin will end up eventually slowly rotting on Jack’s bathroom counter.

Have you posted your obligatory Facebook picture of your kid with a pumpkin? If not, you better give in to the pressure and head on over to a pumpkin patch this weekend!

If you would like to see more pictures of Jack and his friends at the pumpkin patch, I cordially invite you to visit The Dadabase’s Facebook page.

While there, you can check out the picture folder named Lucky Ladd Farms Pumpkin Patch, where you can catch a sneak peak of potential Dadabasematerial I am sure to write about in the near future.

 

Leave a comment Posted on parenting, Storytelling, Uncategorized

Dear Jack: The Transition From The Dadabase To Family Friendly Daddy Blog

3 years, 7 months.

Family Friendly Daddy Blog

Dear Jack,

Well, it’s been a week since I finally revealed to you that for the past 3 years, I had been the officially daddy blogger of Parents.com.

I wanted to make sure that in the midst of enlarging my blogging territory by sharing new parenting infographics, reviewing cars, and writing about life as a plant-based family here on Family Friendly Daddy Blog, that I don’t neglect continuing my letters to you.

(To differentiate my letters to you from my other posts, I will be including “Dear Jack” in the title of them.)

Because to me, that’s the heart of what I do as a daddy blogger. In other words, you personally are the heart of what I do as a writer.

Right now I’m halfway through transferring my thousand Dadabase posts over to Family Friendly Daddy Blog.

Sure, I could Google some easy way to transfer it all over at once, but somehow that’s not tempting to me.

Evidently, it’s therapeutic for me to be forced to read through every single one of my thousand or so daddy blog posts for the past 3 years, remembering the stories our family has lived through; making us who we are today.

Seriously…

Go back to the year 2012 and see how horribly cheesy (!) I was back then. I really must have thought I was some cool 80s game show host or something.

The clothes, the hair, the corny catch-phrases.

But I understand, that’s how life is: I had to live through these experiences to become who I am today.

Looking back, it’s like I had to play this character I didn’t necessarily feel comfortable playing, but I only thought I felt comfortable at the time.

However, now, I truly am comfortable in my life’s roles.

It took 3 years of writing for Parents.com to graduate to this version of myself. I’m grateful Parents.com put up with a cornball like me for 3 years!

As for where we are now, I feel good.

I feel this change to Family Friendly Daddy Blog was important for us. The timing is right.

I’m just as curious as you are to see where this takes us, but I know this- wherever we go, we’re going to have a great time together.

Love,

Daddy