Six Signs You’ve Been Spending Too Much Time With Your Kids

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As parents, we consistently struggle to spend quality time with our offspring, but is there such a thing as too much quality time with your kids? With all due respect to the attachment parenting aficionados out there, hell yes. If you’re a stay at home mom or dad, you’re often spending 24 hours a day, seven days a week with your kid. I like my kids, but I also like riding bikes and having sex, and I wouldn’t want to do either of those things every single day all the damned time. My God, think of the chafing.

And that’s really what we’re talking about here, “parental chafing”. When you spend hour after hour with your kids, your patience gets thinner, your temper gets shorter, and your outbursts grow more frequent. You’re emotionally and psychologically “chafed,” so every little thing (fixing dinner, giving tubbies, mediating a property dispute between the kids) becomes as annoying as a marathoner’s sore nipples.

The trick, is to catch yourself before you go over the deep end become that mom from Mommy Dearest, or any Dad from the ‘50s. So, here are five signs you’ve been spending too much time with your kids. If you recognize any two of these signs, fly to Vegas without your children immediately.

1)   You have a temporary tattoo on your arm that says “I Heart Ballet,” even though you do not heart ballet. It will last for the next seven days.

2)   Your diet consists solely of tube yogurt and string cheese. Actually, anything shaped like a penis. Mini carrots. Hot dogs. Is anyone else suddenly concerned by the phallic nature of kid-friendly foods?

3)   When you’re in bed with your significant other, and things get heated, you accidentally recite the theme song to Doc McStuffins: “It’s OK if you giggle, this will only tickle a little.”

4)   Taking the trash to the curb while drinking a beer feels like a night out.

5)   You’re covered in glitter, but you have absolutely no recollection of how it got there. Like you’ve been roofied by fairies.

6) You’ve started prescribing “Time Outs” left and right, mostly for incidental infractions like “using too many conjunctions in a single sentence,” because the only peace and quiet you get is when your child is being punished in his/her room.

Shit Cats Like

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You know what cats like? Surprise parties. Thrown by 4 year olds. Take my cat, Murray. Murray loves it when the kids wrap milk cups and action figures up in construction paper (like presents), put on costumes and party hats, then hide behind the couch cushions all quiet like ninjas, only to jump up and yell “SURPRISE!” when Murray saunters through the living room to get a drink of water. Yeah, cats love shit like that.

My kids have recently discovered how much fun it is to fuck with the family cat. On any given day, they’ll spend a total of 3-4 hours coming up with new ways to “play with” the cat. Here’s one of their favorites: they like to collect acorn tops, then find the biggest one and make Murray wear that acorn top as a hat. It’s humiliating. I can see it in Murray’s eyes.

They also like to try to wrap him up like a present. They’ve gotten the bow on, but never been able to tape all the corners of the paper down because of Murray’s spirited protests.

My cat also loves impromptu breakdance sessions, which my kids call “meow meow dance parties.”

They love to see how Murray looks in their mother’s jewelry. (He looks pretty).

My daughter has figured out that she can pick the cat up now (“look daddy, he loves it!) and she’s drunk off her newfound power, placing Murray in awkward places (in the bathtub, on her pillow, on her pillow in the bathtub) just because she can. It’s only a matter of time before I find the cat in the refrigerator, wearing a fabulous bracelet.

Seriously, watching my kids have  a “play date” with Murray makes the water boarding scenes in Zero Dark Thirty look like a damn Saturday Morning Cartoon.

But it’s all done out of love. Whenever we’re out running errands, the kids spend most of their time trying to get Siri to get in touch with Murray because they miss him so much, screaming from the back of the van, “text Kitty.” “Text Kitty.” “Siri, text Kitty.”

 

 

The Game of Parenthood

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Does anyone else think the Man in the Yellow Hat gives Curious George a little bit too much freedom? If you leave your monkey home alone while you run laps around the park, he’s going to turn his bedroom into a worm farm. It’s gonna happen. Maybe I’m just a helicopter dad, but what kind of a parent lets their monkey take a rocket into space to resupply the international space station? I understand the laissez faire parenting style is a key plot device, but still, I think social services should pay the man a visit.

As you can see, I’m highly judgmental of other parents. But let’s be honest, one of the great joys of being a parent is that we get to secretly judge the parenting skills of our peers.

I mean really, what kind of a parent lets their kid climb up the slide?

Judging other moms and dads is like a sport for me. If I spot a parent giving their kid juice instead of water, that’s one point for me. If I see a bag of chips with a kid’s lunch, that’s one point. What’s that? You don’t feed your kid all organic, locally raised poultry? Two points for me. Your kid’s bedtime is “fluid”? Three points for me.

Should parenting be a competition where we keep score and declare a winner? Hell yeah, it is. And don’t start throwing stones—you all do it too. If we didn’t judge other parents, how would we know that we’re doing a good job ourselves? By raising healthy, happy kids? That’s too subjective.

And don’t worry, if you’re playing by the same rules and point scale that I use, there’s a good chance you’re beating me in the Game of Parenthood.

I have a good friend who lives down the road—he’s another stay at home dad—that can’t help but be a better dad than me. He rarely uses the microwave, cooks breakfast every morning, has his kids in bed by 7:30 nightly, and doesn’t use lollipops as currency. The bastard even bakes. He’s definitely winning.

Little does he know, I get the most satisfaction out of judging people who are obviously better parents than me. Why are they trying so hard? It’s a marathon, not a sprint. Right?

Alas, my judgmental days may be over. My kids seem to be picking up on the habit, and they’re not quite as subtle as I am. Recently, when my daughter saw a college kid with a pink mullet, she smugly informed the room, “that girl has weird hair.”

So I think I’ll take it easy on the Game of Parenthood. I mean, I’ll still judge the hell out of all of you, I’ll just keep it to myself.

Okay people, what habits of other parents do you secretly judge?

Drinking Games

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Anyone interested in the secret to happiness? Follow the link below to my new blog at Blue Ridge Outdoors magazine, where I discuss that beautiful intersection between booze and outdoor adventure. This week, I detail the recipe for true happiness (hint: the recipe includes six beers and one bicycle). Next week, I might talk about making bloody mary’s while backpacking, or doing a keg stand between laps at a mountain bike race, or doing a pub crawl on a standup paddle board, or…you get the picture. Adventure+booze=awesome. 

Check out this week’s goodness here. But don’t forget to keep checking back at Daddy Drinks, where I continue to discuss that even more precarious intersection where booze and parenthood meet. Booze+parenthood=judgmental glances from the other parents at the park. 

 

Diaper Ninja, or Why Life is a Musical

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Maybe our life isn’t as polished as the “twirling on a mountaintop” kind of musical we’ve all grown accustomed to, but it’s a musical none the less. Imagine if Quentin Tarantino did a musical. It’s like that. Loud with lots of blood.

Case in point: My daughter just performed a rousing rendition of “God Save the Queen,” only she went method and sang it as if she were a cat. Lots of meows. Lots and lots of meows.

Case in point number two: My son likes to put a night time pull-up over his head and pretend he’s a “Diaper Ninja.” Then he gets the Swiffer and runs around the house smacking imaginary ants before they can get to his sister. But he sings and dances to Mumford and Sons while he does it, so the whole scene takes on a sort of West Side Story meets Power Rangers vibe that’s really sort of sweet if you can get past the disturbing Diaper Ninja imagery and ant brutality.

So yeah, life is like that kind of musical. Good thing we’re in the world’s greatest Preschool Garage Band, Toots and the McGoots and have the raw talent and creativity to mold this chaos into a work of art that will stand the test of time.

Frank and Beans

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Something I never thought I’d have say to another person: “Dude, put your pants on. You’re gonna burn your penis.”

Because most nights, my son wants to help me cook dinner. But some nights, he doesn’t want to wear clothes. As if trying to keep all of his fingers off of the hot stove wasn’t enough, now I’ve got another appendage to worry about. I’m not sure why the kid likes to be naked, but from what I can tell from informal surveys, it’s a universal issue with preschool boys. I mean, I get it. Penises are fun, why wouldn’t you want to just hang out with it? But I’m getting a little tired of looking out the window, and seeing my kid with his pants down in the front yard…peeing on the fence…waving at the neighbors.

Sure, he’s young enough now for the little old ladies walking their dogs by our house to laugh it off. But the kid’s getting older. It’ll go from awkwardly cute to awkwardly illegal pretty damn quick.

I blame my wife, who insists that his predilection for nudity is perfectly normal for a boy his age. Maybe. But I’m skeptical; she wasn’t raised with the sexual hang-ups and body guilt that have made the fully-functioning adult that I am today. I had the benefit of being raised in both a traditional Southern household and a Catholic household. In my mind, anything you do naked is a mortal sin. Even taking a shower requires three Hail Mary’s. We thought the Jesus statue at our church was a little risqué. I mean, why can’t he wear a t-shirt?

So I’m doing my best to negate my wife’s well-adjusted approach to innocent nudity and instill the same hang-ups in my children that I enjoyed. I may permanently fuck them up emotionally and psychologically, but at least I’ll avoid having to explain a second-degree burn to my son’s Frank and Beans to the suspicious ER doctor…and subsequent Social Services advocate.

Reason Why Hanging with Preschoolers is Cool #5

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Communication Will Never Be the Same

Occasionally, you get to send this text: “The panties are in your mailbox.”

And you’ll get to send this text to another stay at home dad, a guy you play poker with, a guy you often drink beers with, and a guy you occasionally have play dates with. Because when you have play dates that involve four-year-old girls, accidents happen. And when accidents happen, you have to borrow a pair of undies for your daughter, and then you find yourself returning those undies at a later date while walking the dog around the neighborhood. So you stuff the panties in the mailbox and send the text.

On a completely separate occasion, you’ll get a text from your wife that simply says “Balloons!!!” which will send you into a tourettes-like frenzy of profanity and derail your entire afternoon. One word, three exclamation marks, and it becomes the most important thing in your world that day.

You will also have entire conversations with other adults that include phrases like, “I think the new My Little Pony cartoons are a little too dark.”

You’ll say this because it’s true. Not the old ones that we watched when we were kids, but the new ones. They’re really disturbing. Ditto Care Bears. That shit’s kind of fucked up. And so you’ll have long conversations with other parents about how disturbing Grumpy Bear is, or how you don’t trust any bear that can shoot a rainbow out of its belly button, and you’ll do this with a straight face, because you watch way more cartoon TV than regular TV.