parenting

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What Are Ways To Avoid Hiring A Babysitter?

August 3, 2012 at 11:42 pm , by 

20 months.

Yes, I’m cheap.

I don’t pay for cable; we have “bunny ears” allowing us to pick up the major networks.

And I refuse to have Internet on my phone because I would constantly be distracted by the thought of what I am missing out on. Plus, I’m too cheap to pay for it.

Needless to say, I won’t hire a babysitter.

This week on my favorite radio station, WAY-FM, they were talking about the average hourly rate to pay a babysitter for one kid being $12.75.

Coincidentally, I heard about a clever idea a restaurant here in Nashville is starting this weekend:

Any parent who drops their child off at The Children’s Playroom will receive a $10 coupon to Sperry’s Restaurant, and after parents redeem the coupon at Sperry’s they’ll receive a $5 coupon for The Children’s Playroom.

The fact that businesses are getting involved to help give parents a way to have a fun night out without their kid is proof that many of us parents A) have a desire to go out and have fun without having to worry about the kids but B) don’t won’t the hassle of hiring a babysitter.

Considering I pay over 200 bucks a week for professionals to watch my kid for more hours per week than I’m actually with him myself, I can’t justify dropping any more “Zack Morris bucks” for babysitting.

The obvious way to avoid hiring a babysitter is to take advantage of the times your family comes to visit. We always plan a date night around these times. Doesn’t everybody?

Another plan we participate in is we have a deal with a friend who lives nearby:

We wait until we put our son to bed at 7:00, then she comes over and enjoys access to our Netflix account on our Wii, which only costs us like $9 a month so I’m not too cheap for it.

While she relaxes and watches a movie on our couch, we get to go out for dinner. Granted, since our son is asleep the whole time upstairs, she’s really house-sitting more than she is baby-sitting. And we always bring her dessert.

Another scheme we have done is going in shifts. If our friends are having a party that starts at 7:00, which as I just mentioned, is our son’s bedtime, then as I’m putting him to bed for the night, my wife will enjoy the first half of the party. When she returns, I tag-team her out.

So we both get to see our friends at the party; just not as a couple. But like it matters, because even if we showed up together, we’d end up talking to different people anyway.

My last idea to avoid hiring a babysitter is to hang out at the house of one of your kid’s friends with their parents. Between 4 adults and 2 kids, you’re never really having to pay as much attention to your own kid as you would if you would at your own house without company.

Whereas normally you’d be at like 100%, in the company of other parents you only have to be at like 35%.

Your kid gets to hang out with a friend and you get to hang out with that kid’s parents; assuming they’re cool.

It’s okay to be too cheap to hire a sitter. Do you have any ideas you’d like to share? I may steal them from you.

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I Kind Of Have A Man Crush On My Son

August 1, 2012 at 8:43 pm , by 

20 months.

I don’t envy new dads.

There’s that token “I’m holding my kid for the first time” picture on Facebook that automatically gets like 53 comments and “likes.” I know, because here’s my version of that picture posted 20 months ago.

And then comes the culture shock and the learning curb.

Months later arrives the anger resulting after someone pulls you aside and tells you that it’s normal for an infant to start sleeping through the night at 3 months old and that “crying it out” is just a natural part of it.

“You mean all three of us could have been getting sleep this whole time?!”

Even worse, no one really tells you how to get your baby to sleep through the night, anyway. Meanwhile, the extreme parents try make you feel guilty for even exploring the idea.

Again, I don’t envy new dads.

Hallelujah, I am well past that stage now! I’m no longer a “new dad.” I’m a father of a toddler.

New dads, I am writing you this from the future. It gets better.

A lot better! It took me a while, but I’m finally at that point where I can proclaim, “I LOVE being a dad!”

In fact, I kind of have a man crush on my son.

I add him to my current list of man crushes: Ron Paul, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Bruce Springsteen.

What really propelled me into this state of fatherhood nirvana was probably this past weekend.

There was nothing monumental about it: We took Jack to swim lessons, and on a wagon ride, and just hung out a lot with him.

But the whole time, he was cool. Not high maintenance, not needy in an annoying way, just chillaxed like Jack Johnson.

Sure, it’s easier to feel good about myself as a dad when my kid behaves well the entire weekend. But his 48 hours of perfect behavior which allowed our family to have fun and stay in good moods was largely a result of my diligence with him.

I love to see those moments of “it paid off!” in parenting.

What topped off this perfect weekend was when my wife handed him over to me to put him to bed for the night. He ran right up to my face as if he was going to awkwardly kiss me like Paul Rudd or something.

Instead, he gave me an “Eskimo kiss.” (My wife has been working on teaching him to do that.)

I can’t explain it. But that somehow melted my heart… but in the most manliest of ways, of course.

 

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My Son Likes The Color Pink But Not Fairies

August 1, 2012 at 7:41 pm , by 

20 months.

Today a fellow coworker announced to our office, “Who wants a new coloring book?”

“I’ll take it,” I instantly replied. Evidently it was a gag gift, having been cleared out from the desk of a recently fired employee.

What made this the ultimate goofy prize is that it was a pony fairy coloring book. For little girls.

But I figured, what’s the difference? I would just hand it to Jack when I picked him up from daycare and he would think I was some herofor getting him a new coloring book for no reason.

It’s not like he would care that the thing featured dozens of girly, winged ponies.

And I was right. But how exactly did he entertain himself with this princess pony coloring book in the back seat of my car?

By ferociously grabbing the pages and ripping them out like a T-Rex to his prey.

Jack does not like fairies.

Similarly, as Sesame Street plays in the background at our house during playtime on the weekends, Jack will stop what he’s doing and say, “Elmo? Elmo!”

That means the “Abby’s Flying Fairy School” segment is on. We have to fast forward to the next part of the episode that features Elmo, or at least a more traditional Muppet.

Again, Jack does not like fairies.

Well, except for that ball he has. On one of their more recent trips here to Nashville, my parents treated Jack to a trip to Target. He found this little dark green ball, about the size of a racquetball. So they bought it for him.

After getting back to our house, they took a closer look at this ball they perceived as a toy for little boys: “Disney Fairies.” Yep, there was Tinkerbell doing her fairy thing.

And speaking of less than masculine toy balls, there’s the fact that last week when Jack and Jill were visiting family up in Pennsylvania, Jill wanted to buy Jack a soccer ball. So she let him pick one out.

Which one did he chose? A pink miniature Nike soccer ball designed for little girls.

Jill swapped it for the red, white, and blue version.

So Jack likes to play with sports balls; even if they’re pink. He doesn’t discriminate. And you may be able to get away with sneaking  Tinkerbell on the ball as long as the rest of the ball looks masculine enough.

But fairies in a coloring book or hogging up Sesame Street air time? That’s crossing the line.

For me, it’s interesting to sort of stand back and watch him on his own discern what is too feminine for his liking.

At 20 months old, his instincts are already guiding him as he figures out which toys are for boys, which are for girls, and which can be for both.

But this he knows: Fairies in plain sight are always for girls.

 

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Using Subliminal Messages On My Toddler Son

August 1, 2012 at 2:19 am , by 

20 months.

I lied.

A few days ago I said I wouldn’t be eating at Chick-fil-A because I’m a vegetarian. But after the past week of seeing a sporadic flow of sarcastic eCards dissing “waffle fries cooked in hate and bigotry” there was a particular part of that phrase that just got stuck in my head:

Waffle fries.

So yesterday I totally went to Chick-fil-A and got some large waffle fries. When I was there I saw a poster advertising their new peach milkshake and now I can’t stop thinking about that.

Yeah, I know today is the official “Chick-fil-A Appreciate Day” (AKA “Support Free Speech Day”) endorsed by Mike Huckabee. I’m not going there today because of the political movement that is happening.

I am going there because I want a peach milkshake. I want the milkshake because of the sarcastic eCards about waffle fries that made me start thinking about waffle fries.

In other words, despite certain Facebook friends’ efforts to get me to think that Chick-fil-A supports hate groups, I have now not only found myself not caring what the CEO of their company said (or didn’t say) but even more ironic, buying Chick-fil-A when normally, I would have never thought to go there.

(When you’re a vegetarian, going to a fast food joint is basically pointless. Until you start thinking about waffle fries and peach milkshakes.)

I have been intrigued by the concept of subliminal messages ever since I saw that episode of Saved By The Bell where Zack Morris gets all the girls in his school, as well as A.C. Slater, to fall in love with him after playing a subliminal message-laced song over the school’s PA system.

As much time as my wife and I spend deliberately teaching our son to do certain things, I give little thought to the lessons we teach him by accident.

The boy loves to vacuum.

Sure, he’s using the extension nozzle and it’s not actually attached to the vacuum cleaner. But hey, it’s no different than how musicians in music videos play their electric guitars which are not plugged in to an amp.

He also enjoys helping Mommy make dinner. Yes, he thinks it’s fun to mix the ingredients together.

But I also do my part to intentionally plant subliminal messages in his head. Last night we were trying to introduce him to some organic, blueberry-flavored applesauce. I could tell he was weirded out by it being a different color than normal.

“More? More?” I said into his ear as my wife drove the spoon to this mouth.

Yes, I gave him the idea that he would want more of it before he even tried it. And it worked.

But now he’s learning to use subliminal messages in his favor, too. He has picked up on the fact that when I ask him if he wants to do something, like read a book, and he says yes, I immediately respond with “okay.”

Here recently, he will ask me for something, like to have a snack right before dinner.

“Snack? Tay.” He asks for a before-dinner snack, then immediately attempts to say “okay” which comes out as “tay.”

Yes, he is pre-approving the question for me. How thoughtful of him.

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“I Want To Be An Extreme Parent!” Said No One Ever

July 29, 2012 at 12:43 am , by 

20 months.

The creator of the TV show Dance Moms is working on a new reality show about Extreme Parenting, due to beam up (and possibly burn out) your plasma screens this fall.

Yes, it will be a train wreck. No, Thomas the Train will not be involved.

Of course, since we seem to love watching train wrecks, while downplaying them each as a “stupid guilty pleasure,” we fund and endorse these ridiculous reality TV shows that we are ashamed to admit we like.

This upcoming Extreme Parenting show will be featuring parents who endorse co-sleeping, elimination communication (no diapers or potty training), unschooling, and non-vaccinating.

Basically, I have a feeling the show will make a circus of participants of attachment parenting.

As I pointed out in How Gay-Friendly Ads Affect What You Buy Your Kids, we as a pop culture are easily engaged, offended by, and divided by extremes that affect other people’s lives, but often not our own.

“I don’t agree with your viewpoint” is often perceived as “I hate you.” So then polarizing groups form and they ridiculously boycott each other.

In my 2+ plus years so far of daddy blogging, I’ve accidently ran into a few (several dozen!) extreme parents who decorated my comments page like flair on an Applebee’s uniform in 1998.

Some extreme parents are mellow and non-preachy about their different parenting lifestyle.

Others are not.

I evidently have become a classic villain among intactivists and anti-Ferberizers (those who oppose the “cry it out” method for getting their child to sleep through the night.)

Just read the comments to these articles I’ve written and you’ll learn that if you put me in a room with a black light, the “666″ becomes visible on my forehead:

Is It Wrong To Let Your Baby Cry It Out?

Getting My Infant To Sleep Through The Night

Dadvice #5: How Is It Natural To Circumcise Your Son?

Dadvice #6: Is Circumcision Unnecessary And/Or Immoral?

Dadvice #7: A Skeptic’s Letter To Intactivists

Dadvice #8: Too Young To Medicate ADHD And Bipolar Disorder?

I don’t think anyone ever says, “I want to be an extreme parent.” But I bet a lot of extreme parents don’t even realize they are.

As for me, I make it one of my daily goals in life to not to be an extreme person, in general. I believe in the importance of being passionate about things you stand for, but not extreme.

But cyber-bullying, boycotting, and name-calling are not part of my moral belief system. Therefore, I won’t cyber-bully, boycott, or name-call those who do those things.

(Unless this technically counts right now. Oops.)

The irony, however, is this: We are all extreme parents to somebody out there.

I am an extreme parent for having my son circumcised and for teaching him to sleep through the night at 7 months old.

You can’t not be an extreme parent… because the true extreme parents out there already see you as one.