parenting

Leave a comment Posted on parenting, Storytelling

My Kid Has Learned His Own Name And A Sense Of Identity

September 22, 2012 at 10:47 pm , by 

22 months.

In the midst of all the semi-organized chaos of watching your kid grow up, there are subtle changes that occur which can be pretty easy to miss.

Today it hit me: Jack has not only gained a neck, but he has also lost his double chin.

He has been a sturdy baked potatosince he was born. But now as my toddler’s baby fat is being chiseled away, the body of a little boy is beginning to emerge.

Even his Santa Claus belly is starting to disappear.

As my wife and I have recently been looking back at pictures of Jack from over a year ago, I noticed how he was more of a generic “baby blob.” He’s gone from a Muppet Baby to more of an actual Muppet.

Now we are experiencing the rebooted version of our kid. He still has the same personality and quirks of the 1 year-old version of himself, but is now more enhanced.

We are now seeing our son in high definition. It’s not just that he looks more like a real boy, but he acts more like one too.

This isn’t something I’ve really thought about until just now, but I’m seeing my son develop a sense of dignity; finding it through independence and an awareness of his own identity.

The kid is determined to learn to poop in the potty, without any subliminal motivation from his parents. He’s psychologically desiring to outgrow diapers, like a “big boy.”

At the same time, he doesn’t want us making all the trivial decisions for him anymore. Like, he wants to decide which shoes to wear.

Even while getting him ready for his noontime nap today, he made us aware he needed to wear his pajamas, not his regular clothes.

Jack officially knows his name is Jack now. Along with that is the fact is he is wanting to establish who Jack is, apart from every other toddler he knows.

After all, he did invent “Beans and Rice Juice.”

Leave a comment Posted on Nostalgia, parenting

Help! I’m Being Targeted By Rebooted 1980′s Toy Characters

September 22, 2012 at 2:37 pm , by 

22 months.

I’m not complaining. In fact, I’m a little flattered.

When I step into any toy aisle in pointless attempts to find a small fire engine truck under $3 for my son, my eyes are instantly drawn by the rebooted 1980′s toys I played with myself.

I mean, it’s so deliberate: Transformers, Thundercats, GI Joe, Star Wars, Smurfs, Ghostbusters, and even a new Nickelodeon version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles that cost $8.99 per action figure.

(Ninja Turtles were only $3.89 when I was growing up.)

Even Disney is getting in on the rebooted nostalgic action. The next time you go to a Target, take a look in the clothing aisle for their “Disney Artist Collection,” featuring classic characters like The Cheshire Cat, The Big Bad Wolf, and even Mickey Mouse.

Oh yeah, remember that guy?

There’s actually talk of Mickey Mouse getting his very own movie, for the first time ever; in the likeness of the low-key, classic feel of the Winnie The Pooh movie in 2011.

To be honest, and possibly offensive, if you ask me, Winnie the Pooh needed a make-over anyway, so I applaud the fact that Pooh was brought back with class.

It seems like shortly after I stopped being a kid, Winnie the Pooh became this uncool mascot who I identified with those tacky oversized “nighty” t-shirts at Wal-Mart in the 1990′s.

So go ahead, toy and clothing companies, hit me with your best shot. See if you can convince me, the casual consumer, to buy your nostalgic product based on my own warm and fuzzy memories.

The funny thing is, all I have to do is go to my parents’ house, upstairs to my old bedroom, and pull out the bottom drawer of my dresser.

From there I can unleash on my son all the glory of every action figure I ever owned.

But not yet, the time has not yet come. He’s not ready for all that American splendor.

With that being said, so far I’ve yet to give in to the pressure and buy my son a kick-awesome Lion-O action figure.

But just give it time…

Leave a comment Posted on parenting, Storytelling

My Son’s Delicious “Beans And Rice Juice” Recipe

September 21, 2012 at 11:20 pm , by 

22 months.

Jack’s “Beans and Rice Juice”

Ingredients: water, black beans, rice

Directions: Add one toddler-sized handful of black beans to a sippy cup full of water. Stir by hand. Next, add  one toddler-sized handful of rice. Again, stir by hand. Bottoms up!

I suppose the word “delicious” is a bit relative, especially when talking about my 22 month-old son’s sense of good taste.

Go ahead, don’t be shy. It’s okay to save these pictures on Pinterest to share in your “Recipes I Need To Try” folder.

The obvious irony in my son drinking this homebrew is that, like most toddlers, he won’t just eat anything.

In fact, he will only eat certain things.

Let’s see, there’s Annie’s Homegrown Classic Macaroni & Cheese, bananas, prunes, Cheerios, and of course, beans and rice.

As the home video below demonstrates, Jack very willingly drank his “Beans and Rice Juice.”

I loved how he felt the need to commit to drinking his new invention.

It reminds me of when my sister and I were kids in the late Eighties. Nearly every weekend, our Italian grandfather would take us and our parents out to a Southern steakhouse called Quincy’s, “home of the big fat yeast roll.”

When we were finished eating, we would get bored as we were waiting on the adults to finish.

So I would whip up a fancy concoction in my water glass, consisting of salt, pepper, ketchup, lemons, Worcestershire sauce, Heinz 57, A1, and any another free condiment I had easy access to.

“I’ll give you 5 Airheads if you drink a swallow of this,” I would tell my sister.

And she would.  Airheads candy was evidently a rare commodity for a 6 year-old girl.

But as far as my son drinking “Beans and Rice Juice,” there is no bribing being done here.

He’s just being a cool, weird, adventurous little boy.

 

 

 

Leave a comment Posted on parenting, People

Fake Sympathy For My Son’s Fake Whining

September 21, 2012 at 10:39 pm , by 

22 months.

Last month I saw this Garfield comic that happened to perfectly summarize how I think my toddler son tends to see life. (I now have it cut out and taped up near Jack’s pictures on my cubicle wall at work.)

This concept most applies to our car rides to and from Jack’s day care and my office, 5 days a week.

Jack wants to be entertained, so I keep around a toddler’s survival kit: A book, a toy truck, and a stuffed animal.

After half of the car ride, what does he do? He “accidently” drops any of the above items.

That’s always annoying. Try explaining to your toddler that you can’t sacrifice safely driving to turn around and attempt to pick up his “fallen” stuffed giraffe.

It doesn’t work. Dang logic.

But when he’s not trying to engage me by him losing reach of his toys, he’s instead “hurting” himself with them.

Yesterday Jack kept accidently dropping his two Thomas the Train toys into his knees, making sure I heard his fake whine: “Eh, heh heh…”.

You always instantly know when your kid is faking being hurt, right?

So each time I hear a fake whine, I reply with an equally fake “Ahhhhwwwhhh!”

What’s funny is that it didn’t take him long at all to realize I wasn’t being serious either.

So each time each hears my faux sympathy, now his response is, “No. No. N-n-n-no!”

He wants to be sure I know that he knows.

And then what does he do right after? He repeats the cycle with another “Eh, heh heh.”

Until he has the attention span for a handheld video game, my son is stuck with pretending to drop toys and/or pretending to get hurt by those same toys.

The world exists for his amusement. I wish car rides could be the intermission.

Leave a comment Posted on parenting, Storytelling

I Am The Human Resources Department Of My Household

September 20, 2012 at 11:12 pm , by 

22 months.

Like many Millennials, I grew up with this unrealistic belief that if I simply had a 4 year college degree, I would be all set.

Instead, I entered a work force where too many people, just like me, already had a college degree. So I wasn’t that special after all.

Now I’ve come to terms with the fact I need to become more special to actually be special.

Right now, we live in a 2 bedroom townhouse. Simply put, I’m not going to be in the right mindset to even think about planning to try to have another child in home with only 2 bedrooms.

I’m just now.

Also, the part of Nashville we live in wouldn’t put our son in the school district we would want him in.

Maybe what I’m saying right now sounds a bit on the superficial side, but I’m just being honest.

I don’t care about driving a nice car or living in a big house, but I recognize the socioeconomic pressures of parenthood prodding me to climb the corporate ladder.

This is me planning my way out of “townhouse life” into “small house with a small yard in a decent school district life.”

If I was still single, I just don’t know that I would be so inspired to try this hard to “move up” in the world.

But now I’ve got two people depending on me. That sort of makes me a bit more motivated.

I have had this re-occurring dream where it’s my final semester of college and I have just realized there was this one class I forgot about.

Then the terror sets in as I realize I won’t be able to graduate on time.

Whenever I have this dream, I wake up in relief, telling myself:

“That’s funny. You graduated college a long time ago. You don’t have to worry about classes anymore. Those days are long gone.”

With that being said, last night, in real life, I started taking a course at Lipscomb University.

I will be spending 3 hours every Wednesday night, through December, in a class that will be preparing me to become HR certified.

Then I still have to pay a couple hundred dollars and spend 3 hours taking the certification test, getting at least 70% of the questions right.

All to become an official HR guy.

Yeah, like Toby and Holly on The Office.

It was only a couple of months ago that I figured this out, but since graduating college, the field I have been working in has been Human Resources; not Sales as I thought. So I’ve decided to make something of it.

Turns out, HR is one of the (few) things in life I’m actually really good at.

It involves mediating between different departments, reading people, and knowing how to motivate them in order to bring productivity up- all that fun stuff.

I have a natural talent of playing the role of a middle child; the ultimate mediator.

Interestingly, most of the responsibilities of Human Resources seem to translate pretty well in to my role at home, especially as the dad:

Educating, training, empowering, and rewarding.

I’m always in the middle of stuff, trying to help everyone communicate better and always looking for new strategies and protocols to improve efficiency in the long run.

So whether in the office and in my home, I guess I’m pretty much the Human Resources department. But I’m cooler than Toby Flenderson.

 

Top image: Career, via Shutterstock.

Bottom image: Personnel manager writing, via Shutterstock.