Big enough to Matter, small enough to win.

I have said quite clearly that I think patience (which is indeed a virtue) is very difficult FOR MEN to nurture, even to have.  I am wondering if you do experience patience if it is like a seed and will grow and develop and blossom inside your (my) soul and psyche.  OR if it is a one off deal which if it appears in one case it doesn`t mean it is constantly within you (me) and must be established again EACH and every time when it is needed.  Sadly at this time I think the latter is true. Patience may appear, but it will just as easily disappear again. 

Just such an incident occurred the other day from this writing. 

But first, I must recall last Fall, 2013, an incident of negative outcome.  Now I am quite ashamed about it and have to live with the memory.  In hindsight I will and do think myself ridiculous that I had such pitched clashes in which I could feel the "fight mode" surge in my body ready to do battle.... against a two year old.  Yes its true.  I realize when the little angel will be five I will ask myself "what the hell were you thinking at that time?  C`mon, a two year old?  What happened with you? Are you a lame brained moron?" (I won`t answer that last part).  In my defense, two year olds are much stronger than their age implies.   They have very particular strengths which can confound even Generals of Patton's legend.  Combined with such outlandish demands that either make you stop and think or make you blow your top.  The former is the goal which we should strive for.  "Wait a sec, these are not adult minds we are dealing with lets approach this with calm and collect and not overreact"  Again, sadly the latter is more than often likely to happen.

The culprit was of course food again.  The individual in question with which the conflict happened was the same two year old who occupies my house to this day, namely my younger daughter.  I think we were still feeding her those jars of mush with vegetables and meats mixed to a healthy and tasty paste.  I even enjoy them.  At any rate, we of course fed her other stuff but her variety was terrible, if not worse, then today.   It was supper time and I had to give her a substantial meal, but since she had already had a jar of mush at lunch I had to give her something else.  The best I could do was a jar of homemade noodle with vegetables soup from Grandma.  My daughter had seen me cooking it on the stove and had said "No" when she saw it.  That triggered the fight mode in me from that moment.  I said, you are going to eat this.  She said, "No".   I said yes and put a small bowl on the table at her place.  She said "No" more defiantly and I said sit down and eat that.  I was incapacitated and couldn`t go through the various other methods to try to get her to eat it.  She walked over to it and took it off the table and was going to take it back to the sink.  She didn't even like stuff sitting at her spot if it was vile to her.  Of course her little two year old hands were not steady enough to bring a bowl of soup back to the kitchen and some of it spilled on the floor before I got it and towed it right back to her place.  She tried again to rid her place of it and the adrenaline in full control, I picked her up with one hand, spanked her soundly several times on the bottom with the other and took her to her crib where I placed her in the dark room  and put the bars on her crib so she couldn't get out.  The point was for her to sit there and think of her actions while she cried miserably and angrily. 

I wonder why I did place the bowl back at her place when it was quite certain that she would still refuse it and try to get rid of it again.  I can only think that the adrenaline inside of me wanted a fight.  So I was taunting her by putting the soup back in order to get the fight.  I did.  I won the battle. Ultimately I lost as I reflect on this episode, in hindsight, and wish I could erase my stupid, terrible, senseless reaction.  

So just a couple days ago from this writing, same individual, wanted to stand on the window sill high (as high as she is tall) above the ground to look out the window to see if the garbage truck was coming.  She got a chair over to the window to get up there.  "No, no, no, no.  You can`t look out the window like that.  You go and get some clothes on before you look out the window.  You can not stand in the window completely naked without clothes.  Get some clothes on".  But no.  She wanted to look out the window right at that moment without any clothes.  And she went into cry mode and said she was going to hit me if I didn't let her look out the window.

In Europe they don't have such problems with nudity.  Since women can and often do go semi nude on public river and lake beaches, even public pools.  In America these places of nudity are limited otherwise it is illegal to bare oneself in public places, beaches and poolside.  At a retirement home once I was at in the state of Florida, a little grand daughter ran around the pool nude.  An elderly American woman asked the owner to get a bathing suit on her.  Her Hungarian Grandmother who also lived there, exclaimed, "she is two years old, whats the problem?"

I lifted my little girl down from the windowsill and stood her on the floor.  I held my arm out and she hit me.  "OK, now go get some clothes on",  I said.  She ran off to her room, crying, but she realized what she had to do.

No trace WHATSOEVER of that dreaded adrenaline.  I was calm and I wasn't upset at all.  The need to do battle hadn`t arisen.  I don't know why, but a fragment of a Frank Zappa song comes to my mind.  "Look out where the huskies go, don't you touch that yellow snow".  That yellow snow, a symbol for negative adrenaline, HADN'T come inside me. I hadn't been touched by the yellow snow, that terrible adrenaline which sparks the fight mode.  Victory, dude.  You must be a Father now, a mature one who can handle it rather than flying off the handle.  I went back to cleaning the kitchen where the window was which she liked to look out to see the garbage truck.  I was doing the dishes with my back to the window.

She came back in the room and climbed up on the chair onto the window sill and stood there looking out the window.  Still me with my back turned.  I wasn't concerned.  I knew she had accepted my rule.  I finished the dishes and heard the garbage truck coming and turned to look at her to see how she would react.  She was standing there with some small white socks on which had been put in the color laundry and as a result had turned a soft whitish pink.  That is all she had on.


A wise man once said (or maybe it was a woman in disguise?) Pick your battles big enough to matter but small enough to win.

Two year olds are big enough to matter, but small enough to win.  Usually always. And even if they don`t win, they still win.  And if they lose, everybody loses.    





 



 

Day: Boring, yawn.

Looking over some of my posts, I realize I may be falling to the same tactic that journalists use to spruce up an article and attract readership, namely, over dramatization, hyperbole, or just stressing the stressful parts.  Reading over the daily news one would get the idea that there is nothing but problems and unresolvable chaos in the world.  How is your life?

Its just not true.  Sure we all got problems, even ongoing problems, even problems where we can`t see the light at the end of the tunnel. But look, we get up, we get on our clothes (or even stay in our pajamas as the case may be on some of my Daddy days), have some sort of nourishment or liquid in the morning and then go to work, whether that be to the city, to the office, or staying at home or taking care of the kids.  (In fact taking care of the kids begins even before you start your day).  Then we have our work day.  Is the boss REALLY stressing you out so much and you are under heaps of pressure?  I cant even imagine that current U.S. president Obama is under heaps of pressure during the whole day.  I can imagine that for a good part of the day he sits quietly and calmly at his desk reading things over and thinking about them and making comments and thinking about how to resolve problems, and passing them on to someone else.

The point is, well, there are "scary" days.  There are "Mission Impossible" days, for G s sake.  Even going to the grocery store with your kids can be a Mission Impossible plot, theme music included.  But for the most part, as long as we aren't living in a war zone, life is not a newspaper full of KILLING,  DESTRUCTION, RELIGIOUS FANATICS, ECONOMIC CRISES, AHHHHHHHHH.

Potential fathers, lets not get scared off by what is a very emotionally rewarding, but not so rewarding on the pecuniary side, fulfilling job with some minor flare ups, loss of patience and perhaps the occasional "I CANT TAKE THIS, I NEED A DRINK" incidents.  But that is true anywhere right?

So, listen.  For instance this was what happened last Monday.  For those easily bored, you better leave the room now.  This is no detective novel coming up.

I have to admit I have not been pulling my weight recently on sharing morning duties.  I have let my wife get up, boil the tea water, heat the milk up, get the clothes on, while I get up to cut the breakfast grapefruit.  We used to do one person one day up early, the other person the next day up early, but that was when we had to get up before 7am, which is killer with my DNA.   I meandered in to the kitchen at 8am and cut the grapefruit.  Preschool starts by 9.  We should get there sooner, but.... we don't.  Next year regular school will start at 8.  We ll manage it.... somehow.

At any rate, the Mother and one daughter gone, second younger daughter proceeded to work on a puzzle.  She is really into them and this, needless to say, is very nice morning work.  Problem is, she is getting so good at the puzzles we have that I don't have time to slip in a decent length shower anymore while she does one puzzle.  So she wanders into the bathroom when I am rinsing off, "Daddy, I'm finished look at it."  "yeah, I'm just about done, one minute"  "Daddy look at it now", "Just one more minute", "Daddy look at it now".  Funny how repetition of a sentence is very effective for making someone angry Or moving the butt into action.  I guess it is the same with techno music.  Either you get angry with it because it is so repetitive OR it moves your butt into action. Yeah, little kids are like techno music.  I ll have to flesh that theory out some time.  "One Minute", just enough rinsed off to let myself drip water all over the place and look at the puzzle.  "Yep, excellent little girl.  And you did that really fast, too fast".  "I'm faster right?"  "Yes you are faster".

If weather permits we amble outside to do something.  Either a quick ride down the hill on her plastic motorcycle with me running next to her to make sure she doesn't hit a bump and go flying over the front (yes its happened already) or to the park.  To the park today it is.  It certainly is getting toward tipping point.  This morning there were actually just as many men with their toddlers as women.  In fact I would rather talk to the women than the men.  I am afraid talking to men, it would just devolve into the same old macho posturing, if that is possible watching your two year old kid in the playground.  It will happen.  Sadly though I have to agree with a post from fellow Home Daddy Dustin from Baltimore (rats, I should tag that article here) who lamented the impossibility or creative genius it takes to talk to a women and not appear as if you want to pick her up.  That really you just want to get in a few words here and there between pushes on the swing or helping your kid up the slide, about this and that and the other thing, small parenting talk.   Not going to happen.  Doesn't happen.  So I will remain in my own shell talking to my two year old and even going down the big tube slide once or twice with her.  This takes courage.  I don't have enough courage to ride on the little merry go round bicycles, but my male ego is not damaged by going down the slide.

The tough part of the day is coming up, lunch time.  Mommy left some homemade noodle vegetable soup to be heated up.  The little boss took a look at it and said, "I'm not eating that, I want the soup from the grocery store".   To hear a two year old say this is actually quite comical, but then again, I have to formulate plan b.   This entails the trickery I don't like to do but all parents have to do.  I put some spaghetti sauce or home made ketchup into Mommy's soup to make it look like the grocery brand she prefers, namely tomato soup.  "Here it is little girl, grocery shop soup.  I have it here."  Little does she know,... "I don't like this Daddy, it has carrots in it".   Rats.  Plan C consists of getting out some of the few staples she does eat,  a piece of ham, a piece of Parmesan cheese, and boil an egg.   I give up too easily.  I should really hook her up to an IV unit and tube feed her spinach soup and a green salad while she is in a strait jacket.  But I guess I could be taken to jail for that. Though I'm not sure for which item, the strait jacket tube feeding or for feeding her spinach soup.

Today she ate all I put on her plate, but if she doesn't like something she reverts to the age old trick, "Daddy, I'm tired. I want to take a nap."  Once she did that and she proceeded to putz around in her bed for two hours.  I realized that I`d been had, made a cad of, manipulated, by a two year old no less.  Somehow that has never damaged my ego.  Like Groucho Marx says, "Why this is so easy even a 3 year old could do this.  Chicolina go find me a three year old, I cant make heads or tales of this".  In other words, these little guys are pretty smart.  I think somewhere along the way in evolution the younger toddlers learned manipulation, the more apt they were to survive.   Its like they know how to manipulate just like beavers naturally know how to chew trees down.   

She is pretty good at the napping.  I'm on the clock now.  I`ve got two hours.  Three if I am lucky and today I am lucky.   I can practically do a whole days work while she is napping.  After she wakes up, we slowly get dressed and then head off to pick up her sister at pre school.  She would have swim class today, but I got out of taking her.  She didn't want to go with me, she only wanted to go with Mommy.  I wont argue.  So instead we go back to the park.  Repeat, rinse same as the morning, except now there are a lot more people both mothers and fathers.  My friend shows up.  He used to own a bar.  He has tattoos up and down both arms and maybe a neck tattoo too.  He is there with his 7 year old girl and his 2 year old boy.  She is very well behaved and is very motherly (or fatherly) to her little brother.

"OK, girls, time to go.  Its 6.15, we got to get home." We don't actually leave till 6.45.  Home at 7.10 I was able to fend off buying potato chips in passing 4 small grocery shops with an amount of crying and whining only with promises that Mommy has a good supper at home. I hope this is the truth.

It was indeed the truth and dinner passes off without event.  I think it was trout tonight.  They both love fish.  Yes in fact I do do some school exercises with the older girl before the dinner time and I will keep this up all throughout her school career, until she passes me in knowledge (I hope that wont be in the third grade, I'm hoping on at least managing till the fifth grade.  She has already passed me in language skills though, but that is another story).  I am not delinquent and care a great deal for her education.

Mommy is currently the favored parent for giving showers and preparing them for bedtime,  so I retire for a bit with the computer.  I do like reading the night time book, but even this duty has passed me by.  However, I maintain my rock star status for holding their hand and telling them a story after the light is out.  As written in an earlier post I have taken to creating new Popeye the Sailor episodes.  Also now I have started a new series about little bear and his piano lessons.  Despite the extreme kitsch of these stories, they are going over quite well.

And that's the day.  No newspaper headlines, no hyperbole, no over dramatization, no guts, no blood, no glory.  Its a long day and for some reason very tiring.  It seems the less exercise you do, the more tired you are. Maybe it has to do with the inward stress exercise of carrying off parental responsibilities the WHOLE day from 7am till 9pm.  What they say about the navy could also be said about daily parenting, "Its not just a job, its an adventure".  Though its not the navy either.

I do reserve the right to resort back to hyperbole, poetic license, or uber stressful situations in some or even all future posts.  Or to even change my mind that this was not a stressful day.  Truth be told, maybe because we were outside so much on this day, it was a tad chilly for May weather, that my younger girl got a stomach virus and a temperature near the end of the week.  I even had to leave work earlier one day to buy some medicines or SHE MIGHT HAVE DIED.       

Impatience 2: Clothes part 2

If I hadn't known how it works from my first child, I would have been a psychological wreck with my second child.  As it happens, I am JUST scraping by.  JUST.  I am still not accustomed to it and on the verge of devastation. Desperation.  

Let me explain.  Around the age near two it seems, the child chooses one parent it will be more buddy buddy with.  My first child chose me.  For example she really cried hard even if I was going to take the garbage out and leave the apartment.  Sometimes I changed my mind and stayed in, damn the garbage, let it stink the place up.  I don't want to see my daughter cry.

She would demand that I give her baths, brush her teeth, feed her etc etc.  Not always, I mean she loved her Mother too of course, but it seemed she preferred me to take care.  You know, it was the bonding thing.

My second daughter didn't choose me... at all.

I know the story, or at least I should, but no, its really affected me detrimentally. Still.  Its been going on all this school year.   For instance, I wasn't allowed to brush her teeth.  Well, as opposed to our first daughter, our second daughter hated having her teeth brushed.  Granted, I understand now, some of the back upper molars were slow in coming in and they must have hurt her longer, but it usually took both of us to hold her and brush her teeth.  Me holding and taking good care not to break her neck and my wife brushing.  They say you should start brushing from the time the first tooth comes in, but I m certainly afraid cleaning her teeth is going to be a mental scar on her for lifetime.  I hope not. I don't want her to have fake teeth by the time she is a teenager just because she doesn't clean, just because she associates it with being held down like a rabid dog.  Actually many times she did look like a rabid dog while we were brushing.

And she WOULD NOT let me give her a bath or shower.  You can guess what happened the couple times Mommy had meetings in the evening around bedtime and was away for bath time.  Shower not bath.  I was careful not to get the water in my second child's  eyes because they hate that.  But still it was a torture for both of us.  For her by the fact that I was breaking the rules and giving her a shower and not Mommy ("Mommy isn't home and she wont be back before bedtime").  And me on my eardrums and my nerves.  Surprisingly I didn't lose my cool and kept my patience.  I talked the whole way through the process.  "It ll be real quick, just a minute, lets just do your legs, soap time, here, there, everywhere.  We almost got it.  Its going to be done soon.  Its OK, no Mommy wont be back.  Just about done.  Lets rinse off.  We are rinsing off.  Just about done.  No, Mommy isn't home, she cant do it.  Just about done.  Yep, just about done.  Come on now, lets just rinse off the soap."  Against the back drop of "Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo, wahhhhhhhhhhhhhh,  I want Mommy, IwantMommy, IwantMommyIwantMommy.  Mommy do it Mommy do it."  All at above 100 decibels in an echo chamber that is our bathroom.  I don't know how they measure nerve stress.  What is the measurement for tension on the nerves?  Meanwhile, my older daughter is running around happy as a lark, oblivious to the struggle going on, oblivious to the mental anguish that both me and my tiny daughter are suffering.  

 But the biggest problem is that she wouldn't let me touch her with any clothes.  OK, actually when Mommy wasn't home, the biggest problem was the shower.  She let me put on her diaper (when she still was wearing them) and her pajamas.  The strange thing was that she would not let me touch her with clothes if Mommy WAS home.  And this caused me to break every time.    

Bedtime should be a family thing and a parent team effort so I wanted to do my part.  My wife would give the shower to the younger one then tell me to get her pajamas on while she did the other girl.  Oh, boy I'm laughing now in retrospect, but ... not going to happen.  I have written that getting on those jumper pajamas or the jumper t shirts were killers, I have to add to that list the diaper.  Putting on a diaper is easy these days.  Just get it even around her body and connect the tape.  But she just did not want me putting the diaper on when Mommy should do it.  So she would get the tape connectors unconnected after I got them together.  She would wriggle around so I couldn`t get the diaper even on both sides and then even when I did get it on, she knew how to take it off so she would run away from me back to the bathroom and take it off and tell Mommy to put it on.  Or she would take it off and then go run and hide in her spot behind the clothes shelf, naked squeezed next to the wall.  It was a lost cause.

If I did get it on, best to go straight to the pajamas and get them on too.  But that was even worse.  She would be wriggling around so hard there was no way I could get the leg in the right pajama leg.  If I got it in, she knew how to pull it out, then it would be inside out and I would have to change that.  If she got away while I was doing that she might take off the diaper too, back to square zero.  Or she would put her leg in the wrong leg on purpose.  Or both legs in one leg.  My patience had snapped in the diaper faze.  Now it was getting dangerous.  I realized this and knew I had to step back.  If I hadn`t stepped back I would be a yelling maniac, or worse, the yelling maniac, rabid dog.  "I¨m going to get that diaper on you. Rrrr Rrrr.  I want to put that diaper on.  You come here so I can get that diaper on you." It drained me.  I was morally fatigued, not to mention tired.  But I really only wanted to put her diaper on.  That is all I was asking.  Is that too much to ask for?  "I want Mommy, I want Mommy, Mommy do it, Mommy do it."  She ran away stark naked crying.  Yep, I guess too much to ask for.  My fists were clenched, I was gritting my teeth,  "Grr, I just wanted to get on that gd diaper. Rr", I said spewing spit through my grinding teeth.

As I said, devastation and desperation.  Frustration,  patience gone.

Dads, if this too is happening to you, whoa, take it easy, just give in, step back.  We don't want any injuries or worse.  Watch out, at your age back injuries are quite common.  Spleens are quite sensitive too.

Needless to say Mommy is doing her meetings in the morning.  I can be at work after 11.  My littlest girl is enthralled with puzzles these days.  So Mommy has a meeting at 9.30, comes back close to 11 and finds us happily putting together a smurf puzzle.   There you go, no worries.  But I still have back problems.