Monthly Archives: January 2013

Reason Why Hanging with Preschoolers is Cool #4

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There’s No Such Thing as Stranger Danger Anymore

 At the playground, kids you don’t know will come up to you and tell you the most interesting facts. Like, “My mommy didn’t have a husband when I was born.”

Who says kids don’t share?

Within a two minute conversation with this little girl (we’ll call her Ansel, because that was her name), I learned that she’s moving to Alabama, her dad could be one of three different gentlemen, and she likes apples. She could eat a whole bucket of them.

Of course, it makes me wonder what “facts” my kids are telling random people around town. “Sometimes daddy likes to give mommy special hugs.” or “My daddy says he writes articles but he just watches cartoons all day.” or “we had chocolate cake for breakfast.”

I suppose it’s only a matter of time before my kids out me for the half-ass parent that I really am.

Have your kids ever outed you in a big or small way?

 

 

Daddy Drinks Does Britain

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Today, I had the opportunity to take part in a discussion on BBC Radio about parents lying to their children. Apparently a study was recently published that “discovered” the vast majority of parents lie to their children. I put “discovered” in posts because, well, no shit parents lie to their kids.

Anyway, they had me and a couple of other parents on the show as well as the psychologists involved with the report. I’m not really sure how I did—let’s just say I have a face for radio and a voice for silent film—but I was amazed when a couple of parents called in and said they never lie to their children. Ever. About anything. Not about Santa, not about the quality of the art work their children produce in class…they don’t even create fictional monsters that eat children who don’t sit in their seats at dinner! Shocking, I know.

Obviously, I’m not that good of a parent.

Here’s the podcast if you’re interested. After the bit about parents who lie, they switched topics to Beyonce’s inaugural performance. Obviously, I’m honored and humbled that I got to share air-time with people who were even mentioning Beyonce.

Like Cinderella, God Damn It!

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There’s a whole bunch of unreasonable going on in my house right now. Here’s a snippet of a real “conversation” I had with my daughter last night.

“Daddy. Daddy. Daddydaddydaddy. Watch me dance. Daddy, watch me dance. Are you watching me dance? Daddy STOP WATCHING ME DANCE!”

She went from zero to Bat-Shit within a single breath. That has to be some sort of a record.

My daughter will literally eat an entire hotdog while telling me how much she hates hotdogs. And my son is no better. He will only eat food cooked on the grill (not in the oven) and drink from a green cup. Sometimes I give him a blue cup just to watch him lose his shit.

I think there’s a clinical term for what my kids are. I read it in a parenting article once…what’s the phrase…oh yeah, it’s called FUCKING CRAZY!

One night, my daughter threw an unbelievable tantrum as she was going to bed. I kept trying to cover her up with a blanket, but she kept screaming, “No, like Cinderella!” then she’d kick the blanket off the bed and scream as if she was on fire. “Like Cinderella, like Cinderella, like Cinderella…!” After 45 minutes of her thrashing around my wife and I finally figured out that she wanted the blanket to be draped over her slowly by helpful little birds like in Cinderella.

Are you fucking kidding me? She wants me to train wild birds to tuck her in at night! Thanks Walt Disney. It wasn’t pretty when I explained the limitations of domesticating certain animals. She didn’t take it well.

A lot of people compare raising young children to hanging out with drug addicts, or alcoholics, or schizophrenics because of the irrational behavior and wild mood swings. I think those people aren’t giving drug addicts enough credit. Sure, they’ll take money from your purse when you’re not looking and often spread hepatitis, but not even Charlie Sheen on his worst bender would expect you to manipulate woodland creatures into becoming house servants. That’s a special kind of crazy reserved for three-year-olds.

People, please share the most unreasonable thing your child does so that I know I’m not alone in this world.

 

Reason why hanging with preschoolers is cool: # 2

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They try to put jewelry on the cat.

And get this: Cats don’t like to wear jewelry. Cartoonish antics ensue. I wish I could think of an appropriate metaphor that would describe the struggle between Murray the cat and my two kids as they try to dress him up with a necklace and bracelet, but the only thing I can come up with is it’s like watching a preschooler try to put jewelry on a cat.

 

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