toddler

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The Hunger Games: Toddler Edition

July 2, 2012 at 10:58 pm , by 

19 months.

Jack associates Jill with food. He associates me with… doing weird activities, I guess.

When he whines or gets antsy, my wife’s natural reaction is to assume he wants a snack. So he gets one.

But my natural reaction is to move him to a different room or take him outside. I just change the scenery and he so quickly forgets about why he was upset.

When I am taking care of Jack, he doesn’t get snacks. He doesn’t ask for them. He doesn’t think about them.

My wife is the nurturer. I am the adventurer.

For the rare times I get home with Jack before Jill gets there, Jack and I head straight to the living room and start playing.

It’s not until Mommy arrives that Jack remembers he’s hungry and immediately runs to his high chair, moaning on account of the munchies.

With me, he only wants three meals a day; no snacks.

With my wife, he wants three meals a day, all complete with 2nd helpings; and of course, a snack or two in-between each meal.

Why? Does his appetite truly increase when Jack sees his Mommy?

Nope. But seeing her triggers him to think, “I could eat…”.

What made me think of this double standard is the routine of our family car rides on the weekends. Typically, whenever we leave the house, it’s just after a meal.

Then we load up in the car, with me in the driver’s seat and Jack and Jill in the back. Once we’re all strapped in, I start driving. Then I hear Jill getting out a snack for Jack.

Not because he’s hungry, but because he wants an activity to entertain him. And hey, if Mommy’s activity involves food, he’s not going to turn it down.

I imagine if Jill was the one driving and I was the one entertaining, Jack wouldn’t be eating at all in the car. Because I would be too busy annoying him with his toys for him to think about unnecessary snacks.

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My Toddler Son Is Turning Into A Real Boy

June 11, 2012 at 11:24 pm , by 

A year and a half.

It’s like I’m Geppetto and my son is Pinocchio. No, my son isn’t a wooden puppet; he’s an 18 month-old toddler. But he wants to be a real boy.

Yeah, he knows that technically he’s still considered a baby. But the way he aims to please his adult parents, the way he’s eager to mimic every random thing we do, the way he laughs when we laugh though he has no idea why it’s supposed to be funny…

He wants to be a real boy.

As I look through the dozens of photos I take of him each weekend, I can’t help but notice in certain ones, he looks so much older than he actually is.

But I say it’s no coincidence that those occasional “big boy pictures” serve as an appropriate representation of the percentage of him that is not simply a toddler, but a little boy.

Because that real boy is starting to show.

For the past couple of months I have heard my wife tell our son, “Make the face, Jack. Make the face.”

Evidently one day out of nowhere he started making his signature “surprised face” whenever I wasn’t in the room. Then when I finally did catch him doing it, I was never lucky enough to capture it on camera.

Until this past weekend.

These two rare pictures you see today are of “the face.”

Even though Jack never makes the face when he is actually surprised, he likes to do this new magic trick to entertain his parents; if for no other reason.

Even now, as I look at these pictures, it’s so obvious to me that this does not look like my toddler son from even just a month ago.

There must be something about crossing that 18 month mark that shows up in a child’s physical characteristics.

On Sunday we were at a friend’s birthday party and someone commented, “Wow, look at Jack’s hair. He has ‘little boy hair’ now!”

And I instantly knew what she meant.

I feel like, psychically, he’s grown up more in the past few weeks than any other time in his life so far. I know in reality that’s not the case, since they grow much quicker after they are first born. (Right?)

So enjoy these rare pictures of Jack truly looking like a real boy while moments like these are still rare. Because soon, he really will be a little boy full-time; not just part-time.

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When Kids’ Messes Are Really Deconstruction Learning Exercises

May 6, 2012 at 8:02 pm , by 

17 months.

Jack is finally learning how to actually play with his Lego-like blocks. He likes to see how tall he can build his tower or sword or lightsaber or whatever it’s supposed to be.

But for Jack, it’s just as much fun to tear down and break apart as it is to create.

For the past couple of weeks now, I have noticed that during his playtime, he likes to make messes… for fun.

It’s been nearly a decade since I took a Child Psychology class back when I was in college, but I have to assume that right now my son is working out the engineering part of his brain.

He is teaching himself how to deconstruct things so that he can rebuild them.

My wife told me that Jack likes to abruptly swipe all his bath toys off the tub’s ledge into the water, only to carefully place them back in order.

I’ve said it before, but I truly think Jack is going to be the opposite of me when it comes to his motor skills. He will be a clear-thinking, math and science guy; whereas I’m a deep-thinking, abstract, communications kind of guy.

That’s a good thing. We’ll have plenty to learn from each other.

Of course, that’s not to say that Jack won’t end up being a very sociable little boy, because it’s seems to me he already is.

Yes, I could have allowed myself to become annoyed when Jack started his new daily game of emptying his six different toy caddies in our living room.

But I just remind myself that my son that is becoming his own mechanics teacher.

I can’t believe I just now thought of this, but why am I cleaning up his toys when playtime ends? After all, I shouldn’t deprive him of the very valuable reconstructive lesson of placing his toys back where they belong.

He’s not a baby anymore. He’s a lightsaber swinging toddler who is sure to get better math and science grades than I ever did.

 

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My Wool-Capped, Wagon-Riding Toddler

May 1, 2012 at 10:21 pm , by 

17 months.

I’m assuming it’s pretty typical for infants and toddlers to not enjoy wearing hats.

My experience has always been that if I could sneak a picture of Jack wearing a hat, I was lucky. And then within a nanosecond later, he would always take the hat off his head.

Until this past weekend.

While Jill was at Publix buying groceries, I had put Jack down for his nap. When he awoke, he was ready for me to lead him on an adventure.

Once downstairs, he saw my new white fedora on the kitchen counter; pointing at it and grunting.

I placed it on his head and he liked it, but he seemed to acknowledge the hat was too big for him.

Curious by his sudden interest in a hat, I ran back upstairs with him to his room to pick through the half dozen caps in his top drawer that he has never wanted to wear before.

For some reason, he instantly fell in love with a striped wool cap with a blue puff ball on the top.

Back downstairs, he saw his Radio Flyer wagon and asked me, “Wah-wah?”

So I packed up Elmo, a book, and a water cup; somehow managing to pull the wagon through the front door with Jack in the wagon with those recently named belongings.

Keep in mind that last Sunday afternoon when this event took place, it was nearly 85 degrees outside. What was weird is that he barely sweated. Instead, his neckline was drenched in drool. (He has molars coming in right now.)

It’s hilarious to me that after insisting on wearing a wool cap while being pulled around the neighborhood in a wagon, the look on his face for the majority of the ride was not happy but, at best, stoic.

Granted, he didn’t want out of the wagon, nor did he want the hat off. In fact, a few times when the hat barely started to slip off, he communicated to me (in grunts) to straighten it up for him.

Once Jack stumbles into a routine, good luck on talking him out of it.

I imagine Jack used this road trip (though it was technically a sidewalk trip) to ponder his life thus far.

Perhaps that hat is his thinking cap? [Insert laugh tracks here.]

So much goes through a 17 month-old boy’s head when he finally gets a chance to just stop and think everything; while watching planes fly overhead on their descent to the Nashville airport.

In our neighborhood, there are over 200 townhouses.

People had to hear the wagon rolling in front of their house; looking out their window to see a man in a white fedora pulling a Radio Flyer wagon containing a seemingly dazed and confused little boy who was obviously willingly wearing a wool cap on a humid afternoon.

But since this is evidently one of Jack’s comforting new routines, I imagine soon, that the neighbors will simply say, “Oh, here comes that father and son wagon team again.”

Jack wore his hat for the rest of the afternoon until it was time for bed.

 

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Teaching Coping Skills To My Toddler

April 24, 2012 at 10:03 pm , by 

17 months.

I’ve heard several fellow critics ofmedicating kids for ADHD say that those children never really learn to cope with their problems; therefore explaining why 23% of the 6 million plus children currently on these untested-yet-FDA-approved psychiatric drugs go on to test positive as bipolar.

Actually, I never really thought of it before, but yes, at some point a child needs to learn coping skills. But how and when?

Leave it to me, Mr. Overkill, but for the past couple of weeks now, I’ve been deliberately teaching “coping skills” to my 17 month-old toddler.

My son Jack is in a stage now where he is testing me on whether I will help him when he doesn’t actually need my help.

For example, he will roll his Hot Wheels car underneath the couch where he can still reach it, but he will whine and look at me, as if I should save the day. He hears the same thing from me each time:

“Son, use your coping skills. You can reach it.”

Similarly, I recently helped Jack harness his bravest coping skills to learn how to pull himself up on our coffee table. It’s now a new hang-out spot; along with the fridge.

Other times, he whines about something neither he nor I can control. Like when I’m driving him home and he drops his book on the floor.

“Son, use your coping skills. There is nothing we can do about your toy until we get home.”

The simplicity of what I am hoping to teach him is this: I will help you unless A) you can figure out a way to deal with it yourself or B) it’s something no one can control.

I guess ultimately, my “coping skills” concept is a blatant rip-off of the famous Serenity Prayer:

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.”

If you are familiar with The Dadabase, then you know I am a huge advocate of letting your infant “cry it out” in order to sleep through the night. While Jack has been sleeping through the night for the past 10 months of his 17 month long life, he still tests me during his weekend naps.

You guessed it: I say it all comes down to coping skills.

“Son, use your coping skills. I’ve wrapped you up in this blanket and held you for a minute. You’re very tired and you know you need sleep. I’m setting you down in your bed now and you’re going to learn to fall asleep on your own.”

He “copes” for about 5 minutes then he’s asleep.

My son will experience a life full of “no’s.” Whether it’s me, his friends, his teachers, future employers, and even God Himself.

I know this because at age 31, I’m still struggling with my own coping skills.