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Potty Pride: “They Don’t Make Azteks Anymore”

December 26, 2013 at 10:37 pm , by 

3 years, 1 month.

Dear Jack,

As I was lying down on the floor in the aftermath of watching you open Christmas gifts, you announced to to the whole family that you needed to go potty.

You recruited your Uncle Andrew to accompany you to the half bathroom, which is basically connected to the living room, where everyone was.

Not only did you want him there for moral support, but you wanted the bathroom door open so the rest of us could be aware of all the excitement.

There you sat down on your training potty, with your face between your knees as you looked for… results.

Uncle Andrew sat across from you on the actual potty, seat down of course, as he acted as your coach.

Once you realized you were throughdoing the deed, you immediately looked up at him and proclaimed, “They don’t make Azteks anymore.”

You then added, “They don’t make Pontiacs anymore either.”

I’ve got two different theories on why you decided to announce what I’ve taught you about the demise of both Azteks and Pontiacs as we’ve sat in Nashville traffic everyday going to and from school.

One is that you were so deep in thought as were going potty, your brain focused on car facts to get you through it; to serve as a motivational distraction. Then, by the time you were done, you decided to share that news with Uncle Andrew.

The other theory, held by Uncle Andrew himself, is that in the likeness of a situation where two dudes try to change the subject after a seemingly akward shared experience, one says to the other, “How ’bout them 49ers (or other relevant sports team)? Heck of a game, heck of game.”

Either theory could be valid.

However, based on the look of your face as the training potty was being emptied into the big potty to be flushed, I think you were anything but ashamed.

That’s a look of potty pride, if I ever did see it.

 

Love,

Daddy

 

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The Rules Of A Game Sometimes Change With A 3 Year-Old

December 19, 2013 at 10:35 pm , by 

3 years, 1 month.

Dear Jack,

Last month for your birthday, one of the gifts Mommy and I got for you wasDinosaur Train: Make A Match.

It’s the classic memory matching card game, but with a few twists… like the “Take Buddy” card.

The game comes with a little plastic action figure of Buddy, one of the characters from the TV show.

Whoever has Buddy at the end of the game gets a lot of extra bonus points, which in itself could lead to winning the game.

Of course, you don’t care about the points. For you, winning the game means not losing Buddy.

As Mommy and I learned, the game actually ends the moment that she or I draw the “Take Buddy” card and try to, as the card implies, take Buddy from you.

The youngest player starts with Buddy, so if we actually played by the rules, it would mean about 90 seconds into each game, the game would end… because you would get Buddy taken away from you.

So, our rules for the game mean that no matter what, Buddy is yours for the entire game. It’s just about matching the cards, and sometimes, you even use the kitchen tongs to pick up the cards and place them in your Tonka dump truck.

There will come a day when the rules will actually matter when we play family board games. But for now, just as there is no crying in baseball, there is no crying in Dinosaur Train: Make A Match.

And the reason there is no crying in this game is because we don’t play by the rules.

I think it’s safe to say we need to very slowly (!) work our way up to other classics such as Monopoly, which is all about taking away from the other players until they gradually wither away to nothing.

Yeah, we’ve still got a few years before we try that one out as a family.

 

Love,

Daddy

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The 3 Year-Old Version Of Cursing: “Poo You! I Poke You In The Eye!”

December 15, 2013 at 9:04 pm , by 

3 years.

Dear Jack,

Half your life ago,which was a year and half ago, I wrote “My Toddler’s [Bleep] Potty Mouth.”

Back in those days, when you tried to say the word “cookie,” it came out as… a word I’m not going to say on record.

You didn’t have the ability to announce certain sounds, so a completely innocent word could end up being something that would be censored on cable TV.

These days, however, you can pronounce most sounds you need to and therefore, “accidental curse words” are less of an occurrence.

However, I’m picking up on what I call “the 3 year-old version of cursing.”

Today Mommy was out with a friend for a little while, as part of her monthly designated girlfriend time (my designated guy friend time was a few weeks ago when I went with some friends to see Thor: The Dark World… then Hunger Games: Catching Fire), so this afternoon I stayed home with you cleaning our “2 and a half” bathrooms.

It was time for your noontime nap, but I really wanted to get the cleaning out of the way before you went to sleep.

So I made you a deal…

You followed me to each of the bathrooms as I cleaned them. While I scrubbed the sinks, toilets, and tubs with Dr. Bronner’s Pure Castille Peppermint Soap, you read me stories from a book your aunt Jeneane recently mailed you for Christmas: Best-Loved Children’s Stories.

As I was kneeling down to clean the shower drain, I heard you say, “Poo you! I poke you in the eye!”

I paused for a moment, as I did my best to keep you from hearing me laugh.

Then I walked out of the bathroom doorway to come see which storyline could have motivated that kind of dialogue.

“The purple page, Daddy,” you explained as you flipped back a few pages, to show me the part in “Ali Baba” where a thief annoyingly questions a lady store worker.

I’m guesing it was she that told the thief, “Poo you! I poke you in the eye!”

What a clever curse from the mind of a 3 year-old. I mean, I don’t want you repeating that at school, where you probably heard it to begin with.

But seriously, that’s pretty funny!

Love,

Daddy

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Rosemary Christmas Tree Shoppin’ With The Easter Bunny

December 9, 2013 at 8:53 pm , by 

3 years.

Dear Jack,

With Christmas being about two weeks away, Mommy and I decided it was time we should get a Christmas tree for our family. So we did what I assume most American families were doing yesterday afternoon- we drove over to Lowe’s to find the cheapest option on the clearance rack.

It wasn’t until we had already got there that I realized you had brought your giant Easter Bunny with you.

Seriously, how did you get that thing past me? I honestly didn’t even notice. And evidently Mommy wasn’t too thrown off by it either because I never heard her bring it up in conversation.

Okay, I think I actually need to meditate on that fact for a minute… Somehow, you got the idea that it would be logical, appropriate, and/or helpful to bring a giant yellow Easter Bunnythat is nearly as big as you are.

And most importantly, I didn’t even notice.

As for me, that could be the end of this story, because that is pretty awesome.

We ended up finding a nice Rosemary tree, 15 inches tall, for $3.75. When the manager noticed that we were interested, he gave us a proposal:

“Would your family like two trees this year? I’ll sell them to you for $1.50 each?”

I suppose he was making a proactive effort to clear the shelf space, so I didn’t hesitate to accept his offer.

As I was loading them both in our car to head back home, you announced urgently, “I need to go potty!”

Mommy took over loading the trees while I ran you to the restroom inside Lowe’s, chanting this mantra to you the whole time: “Jack, keep holdin’ it, keep holdin’ it! Don’t go yet!”

You thought it was funny. What I didn’t realize is that apparently you have much greater bladder control than I give you credit for.

Needless to say, you didn’t get your “big boy underwear” wet. With my assitance, you went in the big potty in the Lowe’s restroom.

While that may not seem like so big of a deal, it does mark the first time that I’ve ever been the one to take you potty in public, since you started wearing your big boy underwear.

It was pretty cool for me to be a part of.

Well, what can I say? Our family bought two Rosemary (Christmas) trees:

One for the living room and one for the kitchen counter. Because that’s normal.

And the Easter Bunny helped.

 

Love,

Daddy

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The Garbage Man And The Wolfman’s Brother

December 8, 2013 at 11:28 pm , by