Mommy Was Away For A Week! Daddy Learned . . .

This is Bryan. Amanda has been away for a week in Georgia cause her Grandmother passed away. For Amanda the trip has actually been quite a blessing. I am sure Amanda will blog on her experience at some point after her return tomorrow afternoon, so look forward to that. For now, I am going to do my first blog here on just some of the things I have learned while Amanda was away.

1. While I am a great father, I am not a great mother. In fact, I stink at that.

2. Dishes and laundry don’t do themselves.

3. Kids learn to whine from you. So, you should probably stop whining first.

4. Then make certain that whining never works for them! Otherwise it only gets worse.

5. You can get a toddler to poop and pee pee in the potty intermittently by using rewards, etc, but they will never truly be potty trained until they come to that personal realization that they don’t like the feel of crap and rancid urine sandwiched between their big boy underwear/pullups and their bare skin while riding a big wheel.

6. Eating:

a. Kids don’t usually eat what you make them.

b. The food they love today, they may hate tomorrow.

c. Be mindful of the smell, texture, temperature, and color of the food because they will be more than mindful of these aspects of the meal.

7. It doesn’t matter how late the kids stay up; they will still wake up at the same time and so will you (somewhere in the neighborhood of 6:30 to 7am for me). But, the earlier they go to bed the more pleasant they are the next day.
Note: Eventually you will not wake up when they do because they’ll make sure of it. This is not awesome, as you might think at first, and it brings us to the next lesson learned.

8. When you are asleep or on the phone, the rules of house disappear and no longer apply.

9. I have two ears but that doesn’t mean I can listen to two kids at once.

10. When the kids are playing and one of them gets hurt, it was always “on purpose” according to the injured and always “an accident” according to the injurer. The truth is out there.

11. You have to be prepared to deal with a number of kid explanations/excuses like:

a. I forgot.

b. It was an accident

c. Because

d. He/she made me do it

e. “Did you draw on the wall with a Sharpie?” “Dad watch, I can spin in circle wiff just only one foot!!”

f. This list has no end.

12. Don’t spend money on them. Just give them a whole bunch of boxes and blankets and let them take over the kitchen chairs and couch. Let them use the box fan with a duvet cover, let them dig a hole in the empty lot across the street, they are creative and they will figure something out.
Note: Just make sure you channel that creativity in healthy directions.

13. Kids will ask you to let them do things they know mommy has specifically denied them. They know you are ignorant and maybe a bit naïve. Amanda won’t be back till tomorrow night and I am interested in learning from her what the kids didn’t want me to know.

14. I better learn to set up a routine and stick to it!

15. Let them win sometimes. Like just buy your couches off Craig’s List and let the kids jump all over them. Couches have a mysterious power over kids that renders them completely unable to resist jumping all over it in all kinds of ways and/or ripping the cushions off to build something else. Don’t fight it. Just don’t spend lots of money on the family room couch.

16. If things are too quiet . . . it’s intentional and it’s soooo very much not a good thing.

17. Be sure you understand the things kids say the same way they understand them. For example:

a. “I’m done!” means: I don’t feel like doing anymore.

b. “I cleaned it up.” means: I rubbed it into the carpet for now, I crammed it somewhere, I moved the mess elsewhere, or let’s just pretend it isn’t there.

c. Q: “Do you have poop?” A: “no.” This answer means absolutely nothing! In fact, asking the question to begin with was an utter waste of your breath. I mean, you had some suspicion or you wouldn’t have asked to begin with. You’ll have to sniff or take a peak.

d. “I don’t know.” means: I don’t want to admit it, I want to know what you know first, I choose to forget, or I don’t want you to know.

18. If you’ve ever said no because “If I let you have one, then I have to let all the other kids have one to!” This isn’t true. You don’t have to let the others have one or do a certain thing! But you will have to deal with the protest and whining and hear how unfair it is.

There is much more that can be added here but over the course of the last hour, there have probably been at least 357,591 million interruptions/arguments/injuries/fights. I better get out there. Parenting is odd. As much as the interruptions get irritating, the thought of having no kids here for the last week is actually a thoroughly depressing thought.

Watching the kids play, seeing them learn, cuddling with them on the couch during a movie night, eating cake batter together, catching fish and tadpoles, watching cool videos on youtube with them, and generally spending time with the kids listening to the things they have to say, hearing the things they think about, and watching their eyes light up when they achieve the smallest things . . . these are the things that are so freaking awesome and feel so uplifting that you never regret (and even forget) the sacrifices that come with raising these interesting, wonderful little miracles we call children. The truth is that sacrifice is nothing more than giving up something you value for something you value more. For those reading this who may have children who have passed away, remember that the experiences you were yet to have with them were not lost with their passing. They have only been delayed. Not that this makes it easier to deal with as much as it makes dealing with it possible. Lets all remember that true discipleship is loving and true discipline is teaching. As parents (or potential parents), lets forget ourselves and focus on the little ones because they are bigger than us all.