From January 22nd to the 24th, I filmed 6 webisodes of Uncle Nick’s Enchanted Forest. Similar to the way I filmed 4 webisodes after the Christmas 2015 flash flood, I took advantage of the weather condition, making it the plotline of these half a dozen webisodes.
And starting with Webisode 18, I introduce a fun new theme song as well as a new animal hat…
I’ve gotten to the point where I pretty much just keep my camera, tripod, and Uncle Nick costume in my car with me; in order that I can always be prepared to shoot an episode on the spot.
Good thing I was ready on Friday, January 22nd, when the blizzard kicked in. I have a coworker, Shane Moore, who is quick and faithful to help me out with some of the shoots.
So he served as my camera man and assistant director for the first 2 webisodes of the blizzard story arc.
Webisode 14 features Mama Bear and Baby Bear, who get separated during the beginning of the blizzard. It’s up to Uncle Nick to reunite them!
In Webisode 15, we are introduced to a poor little homeless Husky who is stranded out in the middle of the snow storm. Uncle Nick must find her a new home to get her warm.
The remaining 4 webisodes of the blizzard story arc were filmed Saturday and Sunday morning; just me and my tripod.
Webisode 16 finds Piper the Penguin frozen to the ice. Uncle Nick must find a place to keep her safe until the other penguins return.
In Webisode 17, Uncle Nick must resuscitate a lizard he finds who is literally freezing in the river.
Then in Webisode 18, Uncle Nick encounters a sleepwalking pig, who is headed towards a frozen lake.
And finally, in Webisode 19, Uncle Nick must discover, and uncover, a frozen frog on a log.
In the next story arc of episodes, the plot will definitely be thickening…
If you haven’t checked out my Uncle Nick series, I encourage you to, with a younger child next to you. I predict it will be an engaging experience.
Last Friday morning, Nashville began shutting down. Virtually everyone was sent home from school and work, as the blizzard was beginning.
I am so grateful that it happened exactly when it did: over the weekend.
There was so pressure to try to have to get out in the snowy chaos on the roads for work the next couple of days afterwards, only to have to use my vacation days if I couldn’t make it out of the driveway.
Instead, you and I had the best time!
Mommy preferred the snow better from inside the house. Though she did brag on herself at one point, “I got out on the snow when I checked the mail.”
Meanwhile, you and I made the most of it. Ultimately, nothing we did was what some may call… safe. It was all dangerous, which made it convenient that Mommy didn’t venture out into the snow with us.
I made this video of our adventures together:
Our tour of danger began with you sledding for the first time. While you went down the hill several times with your neighbor friend, Marissa, you weren’t afraid to go alone either.
In fact, since you were the youngest and smallest there at the neighborhood sledding hill, you were the only one small enough to get lodged underneath the wooden fence when the sled didn’t stop in time.
An older boy, who is in the 4th grade commented about you: “Man, that little kid is tough!”
Because with all the bumps and scratches, you never once showed an ounce of fear; you just laughed about it all.
We also ventured over the “climbing wall,” which was the side of 15 foot tall hill, which was laced with a bunch of snow-covered rocks.
You were curious to walk on a frozen pond with me, so I took you to a large puddle that looked like a pond instead. (I knew the water there was barely a foot deep even at the deepest parts.)
And then there was the part where you kept rolling down the tall hill near the creek.
Speaking of the creek, we followed it all the way into the next neighborhood, as you jumped across it along the way.
We took advantage of the adventurous weather. You and I make a good danger team.
I feel it’s pretty easy these days to entertain people on my Instagram. I just simply take a picture of you when I come home from work each day.
Because typically, you’re into something interesting.
Tuesday as soon as I got in the door, you were having fun playing with a small container of slime that Mommy and I got you a while back.
“Look Daddy, I’m a pirate!” you proclaimed.
Clearly, that was your invitation to me to take a picture and share it with everyone.
After I snapped the picture, you bragged, “Daddy, I kept my eye open while the slime was covering it.”
In case “slime pirate” wasn’t a legitimate term before, it is now. You were a slime pirate.
That was funny enough, but on Monday, as we were finishing up dinner, you handed Mommy a sealed envelope.
You were so proud for her to open it.
The letter mainly consisted of variations of the word “boo,” which other than your name, which is one of the words you feel most confident spelling and writing.
Mommy read your letter out loud. There was one particular word that actually made sense. Mommy and I couldn’t stop laughing.
“You’re reading it upside-down,” you explained.
Turning the letter the other way revealed that your own name was now showing, but everything else was now more confusing.
I’m still not really sure what the letter was intended to say.
Whatever you believed the letter said, I’m sure it was kind, loving words for Mommy.
Actually, I’m pretty confused that as you wrote down random concepts of words on that paper, you had hoped that would magically translate into words than actually made sense; as if that’s how writing a letter works.
Either way, your love letter to Mommy was well received.
And then there was yesterday, too. I discovered your artwork. Amazingly, Mommy didn’t notice it first:
A dragon that clearly is able to breathe out fire, but not from this mouth…
Monday evening I came home from work, to discover a trail of 5 homemade cat puppets made from brown paper sacks; beginning at the front door, ending at the kitchen.
When I asked you about them, you just smiled but gave me no explanation.
By dinner time, about 30 minutes later, you began opening up.
You shared their names with me: Bouncy Cat, Wizard Cat, Shape Cat, Letter Cat, and Surprise Cat.
I quickly noticed that each character had a related symbol drawn on its chest with a marker.
Bouncy Kitty had a red bouncy ball. Wizard Kitty had a magic hat.
I had to ask you, though: “Why does Surprise Kitty have that name?”
You immediately demonstrated. You stuck your hand inside the puppet and opening his mouth; revealing his teeth.
Turns out, Surprise Kitty is the only cat puppet has teeth when you open his mouth.
That’s the surprise.
As you were gathering your cat puppets from off the carpet where you had them lined up, Mommy pulled me aside to explain, with a smile:
“Jack made ‘Care Cats’ today at school.”
Mommy and I figured out the story without having to say another word to each other:
This past weekend, as a family, we watched The Care Bears Movie on Netflix.
You were obviously inspired to create your own version: Care Cats.
After dinner, you went on to demonstrate how the Care Cats double as a juke box/CD player.
You gave me some quarters to insert inside a Care Cat, which was lying between two pillows. But instead of a song playing, you just started dancing; inviting me to join you.
The next day, I came home to 3 new Care Cats. You insisted I feed them quarters “so they can go poop.” Obviously, lifting the Care Cats upright, causing the quarters to fell out, meant that they were relieving themselves.
I had every reason to be an advocate of spanking my child.
After all, I was raised Southern. (“Nuff said.”)
Not to mention, I was also raised Southern Baptist. And that means that a particular Bible verse got more than its fair share of attention; Proverbs 13:24:
“Whoever spares the rod hates their children, but the one who loves their children is careful to discipline them.”
Hence, the popular phrase, “Spare the rod, spoil the child.”
However, I now translate that verse as, “It’s better to physically strike your child with a wooden object than it is to refrain from disciplining them at all.”
It appears to me that one extreme is being compared to another; an “either/or” situation.
I am able to comprehend that disciplining my child and spanking him can be two separate entities.
Assuming that verse in Proverbs explicitly endorses spanking, in my opinion, would make hypocrites of us:
I’ve yet to meet a Christian who gouged out their own eye because of temptation to look at something that would cause them to do wrong, when Jesus said this in Matthew 18:9…
“And if your eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter (eternal) life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell.”
Or their right hand either (Matthew 5:30):
“And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose part of your body than for whole body to go into hell.”
In other words, address the actual issue initially, that way you don’t end up with a worse outcome.
Yes, it’s true: I am an official advocate of disciplining my child without spanking him.
But obviously, between how I was brought up and my son currently being 5 years old, something fundamentally intervened in regards to how I think.
What caused such an abrupt conversion in my life?
My wife.
Like me, and like nearly all of us parents who are Eighties Children, she was spanked as a child too.
We had always planned to spank our son, too. The deal was, that I would be the one to actually spank him. And that was it.
Never was the issue that “I simply just didn’t have it in me” to spank him. Because like most of us, I had reached the point of being “fed up” enough to do it.
Believe me, I had it in me…
But yet, I never have spanked my son; nor has anyone else.
And if you’ve met him, you know how bright, intelligent, creative, funny, and well-behaved he is. Is he simply the exception to the rule? Is it just because he’s the first born and therefore more eager to please?
I’m sure at this point, any skeptics out there are tempted to say, “You lucked out with your first kid. Well you just wait until your little girl is born in a few months. She’ll be a whole different story!”
To that, I could only say, try me. Let’s revisit that question in a few years, because you better believe I will on my end.
My official moment of conversion occurred during our first trip as a family to Louisville, Kentucky; to visit the zoo, when our son was around 2 years old.
It’s just about a 2 and half hour drive from where we live in the Nashville area. So we decided just to leave straight after work on that Friday.
What a miserable road trip there! No matter what we did as parents, he screamed and cried. I had to roll down the windows just to drown him out.
He finally fell asleep in the car, after about 10 PM.
But then the next morning, as my wife was buying food supplies for us at the local Whole Foods, my son and I waited in the car for about 20 minutes. He was screaming and “pitching a fit” the whole time.
While being trapped in our little car with him, I had reached my limit. I had officially decided that I would spank him for the first time.
Every cliché redneck phrase was going through my head:
“I’m about to show that boy who’s boss! He’s past due for some good ole fashioned discipline. It’s about time for me to put him over my knee!”
But like any good husband should do, I asked my wife’s permission first.
And she gave me the red light.
She simply pointed out that he hadn’t gotten good rest the night before, as we as the parents had thrown his sleep schedule off the night before, since we were driving when he would normally be put to bed.
From that day, until last week, I had accidentally been formulating a 5 point checklist to decide why my child is “misbehaving.”
I shared it officially for the first time this week. I came up with this alone; I did not extract it from any other website nor did I hear it first from any other person. This is my original work and let the time stamp of today’s blog post prove that true.
Hungry, tired, bored, lonely, or sick.
They need to know when to eat (hungry), when to sleep (tired), when to play (bored), when to engage in conversation (lonely), or when they are physically incapable of feeling well (sick).
These are the times when your child is simply more prone to have restlessly energy and/or be extremely sensitive to the slightest thing, causing them to have a meltdown.
While I alone did invent that check list, I didn’t invent the following 5 step check list for alternatives to spanking. I learned these while serving as Parents.com’s official daddy blog.
Ignore attention-seeking behavior; pay attention to good behavior; redirect your child; teach consequences that make sense; and use time-outs for serious offenses.
This is a lesson I am still learning/reminding myself of.
My wife and I have officially come to the realization that whenever we visit my parents for the weekend, we have to leave their house before 11:30 AM on Sunday; we can’t wait until after lunch.
Our son’s body starts shutting down by that time, as he is needing a nap. It’s not fair to him to expect him to “behave” when he’s having to wait later to eat and sleep later just so we can have “more quality time as a family.”
The exact opposite happens instead: He has a meltdown, and therefore, that extra time as a family is not quality time.
He is simply more prone to have restlessly energy and/or be extremely sensitive to the slightest thing, causing him to have a meltdown.
Instead, we need to leave earlier so that he doesn’t slip into that mindset, and therefore, we as the parents don’t get upset either.
I am so grateful I married such a level-headed woman.
Otherwise, I would be hitting my kid ultimately because as a parent, I wasn’t proactive to provide for his needs ahead of time; regarding him being hungry, tired, bored, lonely, or sick.
What about for the parent who read this and comments, “Well I have always spanked my kid, and they too, are very well behaved.”
I would respond, “That raises the question: If my child is well behaved without spanking, and yours is well behaved with spanking, doesn’t that prove that spanking is unnecessary? If the two methods are simply equally effective, why physically strike your child when there are equally effective alternatives (when applied proactively and consistently by the parent)?”
It is my belief that a lot of people assume the minority of us who don’t spank their children (about 20% of the American population) actually don’t discipline them at all. When in fact, I have a very proactive and detailed discipline system in place.
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