There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t wonder if the way I’m rearing Tyler is good for him. These concerns of mine weigh heavily on me because I want to be the best father that I can for Tyler, and any of his future siblings^[1]. This weight of concern doubles when I see differences in how other parents raise their spawn. While I am aware that everyone parents their children differently, and there’s no single “right way” to do so, there are certainly many wrong ways to raise a child.

Take, for example, the parental duo running one of the carnival games at our county fair this week. This was one of those games where you throw rings at a bowling pin, or some other such nonsense. I avoid all eye contact with that stuff because it will invariably lead to the game runner heckling me to “step up and win a prize for the lady.” Buddy, I’d rather hand “my lady” the twenty dollars it would inevitably take to win a “prize” worth a tenth of that cost, so that she could buy something more substantial than an inflatable tiger. Sarah did look though, and quickly told me to do the same. Roughly four feet off the ground, on a platform where all the prizes lay, stood a Pack-N-Play. Inside the Pack-N-Play was a less than two year year old toddler. A toddler who was wearing no pants. On a 50ºf (11ºc) evening. With 25 mile per hour wind gusts^[2]. That, in my opinion, is poor parenting.

We don’t do that. We also don’t let Tyler play with knives, go near the stove, run around in the street, or drive the car unsupervised. In those respects, we’re good parents. I’m a good father. However, there are many other things that I do allow Tyler to do. I explain to him that he needs to be careful because he may hurt himself, but I don’t remove the “danger”.

Allow me to textually paint a picture as an example of something that may or may not take place in our house on a near daily basis. In our living room is a glide-rocker chair that Sarah used to nurse Tyler in. Its companion piece is a glide-rocker ottoman. Tyler would climb onto the ottoman, which would start rocking back-and-forth, then try to climb from that to the chair roughly 18 inches away. Both pieces sway and rock from hither to thither, threatening to drop Tyler, face first, to the floor. Instead of pulling Tyler away and telling him that he shouldn’t climb on the dangerous furniture, I tell him to be careful because he may hurt himself if he falls (which has happened more than a couple times^[3]). It’s a weak example, but Tyler’s only fifteen months old. What’s he going to be doing in six more months, standing on the peak of the roof with an umbrella in his hands to act as a parachute?

I don’t want Tyler to fear doing things because I’m the one afraid he may hurt himself. But, I also don’t want him to be completely fearless and do something to severely injure himself.

I just don’t know. What say you?

[1] I say siblings as a plural just to keep Sarah happy. I really only intend on giving Tyler a single sibling.

[2] Yes, for serious.

[3] Resulting in little more than an “oww,” said barely louder than a whisper from the little guy.

I was exhausted. With Tyler quietly napping in his crib, I lay across our bed and glanced at the alarm clock on the bedside table. The digital green numbers showed the time as being a quarter past six, in the afternoon. After a slight pause, I calculated the actual time to be five minutes until six. I’ve had my clock set twenty minutes fast for about as many years as Sarah and I have been together. When the repeating tones of the alarm drills into one’s dreams, and one opens one’s eyes to see the harsh green glowing display, the only truth is the time it displays. This is how I manage to get up on time almost every morning. I closed my eyes. I would nap for twenty minutes then go wake Tyler. When I opened my eyes one second later, the display said it was nearly seven o’clock. I sprang from the bed and dashed into Tyler’s room. I didn’t want him to nap too long and ruin any chance at still getting him to bed at a decent time. He woke easily and promptly asked for his mommy (which is great for one’s ego). I explained to him that mommy was in Michigan. She goes there once a week to gossip and hang out study with her friends for their PTA License exam. As we descended the stairs, it occurred to me that it was actually six thirty, and we hadn’t overslept at all.

Minutes later, we were in the kitchen, scrounging for food. I handed Tyler a strawberry while we waited for the microwave to finish radiating our Hobo Pocket^[1] leftovers. The tentative plan for the evening included reading the newspaper while we ate, playing outside, chasing each other through the house, and general father-and-son fun. I looked at Tyler after finishing the newspaper and knew that our plans had just changed. What I wouldn’t find out until later was just how much our evening would stray from the line I laid down for it. Tyler’s face was covered with ketchup, potatoes,and zucchini. But that wasn’t the game changer. This was nothing that couldn’t be corrected with a wet wash-cloth. It was when Tyler smeared banana, potato, and ketchup in his hair that plan B became necessary. The tentative plan B for the evening included playing in the bath, brushing our teeth, chasing each other through the house, and reading stories before bedtime.

I ran Tyler’s bath and allowed him to toss in some of his favorite bath toys. I am a creature of habit, and rarely – if ever – change the way in which I do things. Bath time is no exception. I wash Tyler’s face, scrub his hair, and was his body. Then we play for a bit before pulling the drain plug. For some reason that I may never know, I switched around our routine on this particular night. I washed Tyler’s face and decided we would play for a while before soaping up. We played for a few minutes and were having a great time. Then Tyler stopped. And grunted. In… ANY… other… situation, I would know exactly what was happening. That synapse failed to fire on this night and left me confused.

“Wait. What’re you doing?”

With great reluctance, I glanced behind him.

“TYLER! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!?! OH GOD, NO! STOP!”

The tentative plan C for the evening was to freak the f*** out! And I was well on my way toward doing so. I grabbed Tyler and held him out of the sewage while I tried to develop a plan of action. My only goal was to clean the contaminated area as quickly as possible, with as little involvement of my skin as possible. I wrapped him in a towel, ran into the living room, baby-wiped his butt, put a diaper on him and ran back into the bathroom. Using the same thing we use to rinse water off Tyler – a blue plastic container – I scooped the two turdlets up and dumped them into the toilet. I really couldn’t tell you what it was about all this that had me gagging and very close to vomiting (I wipe smeared poop off his balls more times than I care to count, for crying out loud), but it took quite a bit of mental – and physical – restraint to keep my stomach from betraying me. After grabbing all the toys that were in the tub at the time of the “incident” and throwing them in a sink full of hot water, I poured a bunch of bleach in. I then took that same container of bleach and splashed it all over the tub.

Did I finish washing Tyler? Nope. Am I okay with that? Absolutely.

I was this close (squeezes fingers together) to calling a HazMat team and getting our house condemned. I won’t say that I didn’t muse over how much accelerant would be necessary to effectively destroy a two-story house. The problem is, fire investigators are very smart and would have quickly unraveled the mystery. I’d like to say that they would understand my motives, but I just can’t be sure.

[1] Hobo Pockets:
1 to 1.5 pounds of hamburger (ground beef, ground round, ground whatever) – spiced to taste
Sliced potatoes (about 1/4 inch thick)
Sliced carrots (about 1/4 inch thick)
Sliced onions (about 1/3 to 1/2 inch thick)
Whatever other vegetables you have handy (zucchini, green pepper, etc.)

Get four large sections of tin-foil. Put a hamburger sized patty of meat on each one. Add veggies to each one. Wrap them up so they are completely covered. We actually double wrap them because they like to try to open up when you flip them. Put them on a grill. Grill on medium-low heat for 30 minutes, flipping at 10 minute intervals.

Unwrap and Enjoy the deliciousness!

So, what to do when Sarah’s out of town for nine days, two of them without Tyler? I gave her the “don’t worry, I’ve got this” speech, which did little to appease her worries or put her under the belief that I did, indeed, have this. I eventually compromised by telling her that I’d put some breast milk in a sippy cup, if Tyler absolutely had to have his nursies. I didn’t really see it as a concern, because he only wants nursies when Sarah’s around. Wait, let me say that another way. We never taught Tyler the sign for nursies, so he doesn’t exactly know how to tell us he wants them. As it stands now, he will try to pull Sarah’s shirt down and say “Dat”, to which Sarah will say, “Oh, do you want your nursies, Tyler? I couldn’t tell if that’s what you were asking for.” With Sarah being out of town for two days, he doesn’t really have an effective way of conveying the need for nursies to me. As long as he isn’t pulling down my shirt and trying to get to my nipples, he’ll be aces in my book.

This whole business of Tyler weaning himself off of the boob – with this unavoidable extra little push – got me to thinking about how much Tyler has really grown over the last thirteen months. And it hit me like a ton of bricks.

*a ton of bricks hits Joe*

Tyler isn’t a baby anymore. Completely unbeknownst to me, Tyler went and turned into a toddler. I am not happy with this. He’s my baby boy. He’s a baby that doesn’t need nursies anymore. He’s a baby that walks around, and probably doesn’t even remember how to crawl. He’s a baby that stacks toys and tries to figure things out. He’s a baby that tells us when he’s thirsty or hungry. He’s a baby that – sometimes – eats with a fork and spoon.

As much as I hate to accept it, and I really do hate it, Tyler’s baby chapter is over. I became so wrapped up in his story, that I failed to see the page that marked the beginning of a new chapter. My perfect baby boy is a toddler.

Anyway, the title of this post is “He hasn’t noticed yet” and the point I originally intended to make was that Tyler hasn’t had his nursies in over 48 hours. I guess I could have made a couple creative edits to this post and just titled it “The next chapter”, but I like the way it reads as it is now.

That’s the question I asked myself a few days ago.

When I started high school, I was placed in classes for “gifted students”, presumably, because I was smart. On the first day of classes, one of my teachers wrote a word on the chalkboard.

“Anyone who answers this question correctly goes up a letter grade at the end of the semester,” he said.

We all looked at the board and were perplexed at the simplicity of the question.

“Why?” the board read.

The answer the teacher was looking for was “why not?” It went against everything I’ve learned regarding answering a question with a question, but it was the answer he wanted to see.^[1]

So, when Tyler was having one of his I-cannot-be-separated-from-my-daddy-for-even-a-second-or-else-I-will-start-screaming-my-head-off moments as I walked into the bathroom to “make my peeps come”^[2], I said to myself, “Why not?”

*sigh*

I’m the type of guy that views the bathroom as private time (unless Sarah is doing her make-up. We try to fit the entire family in there when that’s going on, which I’m sure she just loves). I don’t let Sarah watch me, uhhh, conduct business in there, and I certainly wouldn’t watch her do the same. Unfortunately, I can’t just sit down at the table with Tyler and explain how to make peeps and poops in the potty. As a result, I know I’ve got to – at some point – allow Tyler into the bathroom with me to witness how the big boys make the magic happen.

So, why not, Tyler? Come on in and watch daddy bring the rain (pun intended. That one was for you, Mel).

To my female readers, I won’t get graphic here, but if you don’t know how peeing works for guys, let’s just say that, at any given time, at least one hand is occupied. You may be thinking that having one hand free would be sufficient in keeping control of the situation. I’m here to tell you that it is not.

As soon as Tyler saw me raise the lid of the toilet seat, he had to be right there. He leaned a bit to see what was inside of the mysterious ceramic bowl, which put me in the delicate position of trying not to piss on my son’s head. Tyler must have thought the view wasn’t good enough, because he placed his hands on the rim of the toilet bowl and leaned further in. If we were playing the $25,000 Pyramid right now, “stopping mid-stream” falls into the category of “things that cannot be done” and frankly, I was so horrified that Tyler just put his hands on, arguably, the most disgusting thing in any household that I just didn’t care if I gave him a golden shower anymore.

With terror and disgust in my voice, I yelled, “GROSS!! DON’T TOUCH THAT!”

To Tyler, this roughly translated to, “SHOUT!! I’M YELLING THINGS THAT YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND!”

Using my free hand, I attempted to push Tyler away. This didn’t work, because – with me standing and Tyler leaning – my hand just brushed the top of his hair. Instead, I jutted my right knee out and pushed him with my leg. I felt like a Ghost Buster, trying to set the Ecto Trap and still not cross the streams of our Proton Packs. Or in my case, not pee on my son.

Worried that he may try to get into the toilet again, I maintained the awkward pose of peeing while keeping my right leg out in between Tyler and the toilet. He didn’t try again. No, Tyler chose to focus his attention on something else. “Something else” being the very thing that defines me as a father and not a mother. My discomfort of the situation was reaching levels I didn’t know to be possible. I didn’t know what to do, so I concentrated on finishing things up as quickly as possible. I ignored the look of awe and amazement and wonderment on Tyler’s face, and forged ahead.

After what felt like an eternity, I zipped up. Tyler looked up at me, as if waiting for an explanation on what the heck he just witnessed. All I could muster was the look that you give a stranger on an elevator. The look where you raise your eyebrows and smile without opening your mouth or showing any teeth.

“Tyler, let’s never speak of this again.”

“DA.”

I’m choosing to believe that, based on his tone and inflection, Tyler said, “Sure thing, pop. Do you know if the Imagination Movers have a new CD out yet? Whaddya say we get the heck out of this bathroom and find out?”

Why not, Tyler? Why not?

[1] The majority of the class, including myself, wrote “because” on a piece of paper and turned it in. Others wrote paragrahs and pages, going on and on about creationism, or God, or something. Nobody answered with “why”.

[2] Ever since Sarah and I became dog owners five years ago, we’ve used the terms “peeps” and “poops” when asking Logan, and then Delilah, when she joined our family, if they had business to do.

Recently, while Sarah was outside doing some gardening, I brought Tyler in for a late lunch. I feel a little "out of my element" when doing so, because I don’t really know how much food to give him. Luckily, he knows the signs for "more", "all done", and "hungry". He doesn’t perform the signs perfectly though. As a comparison, I’d say it’s as if he’s speaking in a heavy Southern drawl. We can understand him, but he’s not really saying it right*. "All done" should look like this. Tyler’s version is more of a waving of both hands. "Hungry" should look like this (actually, I’m linking to "eat", because that’s what we use). Tyler’s rendition involves him putting his index finger against his mouth. We don’t try to correct him because he won’t be signing much longer.

Sarah’s a big advocate of letting Tyler feed himself. I should be, too. I. Really. Should. Be. The only way he’s going to learn is through practice. But, when he feeds himself, this happens…

 
See also, the mega-adorable picture at the top of this post.

On this particular afternoon, I was feeding Tyler some chicken, broccoli and squash. He pointed to the bowl of grapes on the table and informed me of his desire to consume said deliciousness.

"DAT!"

"You can have a grape after this bite of chicken."

"DAT, DAT!"

"Tyler, eat this bite, and then you can have a grape."

Tyler refused to open his mouth for me. Crossroads, I thought. I plucked a grape off the bunch and held it up.

"TyTy. You can have this grape," I wiggled the grape, "after you eat this bite," I wiggled the fork in my other hand. As soon as I moved the fork towards his mouth, he clamped it shut.

Defeated after a few more attempts at teaching him this new term, I gave him the grape and placed a small bunch on his tray. A few moments later, Sarah came in for some refreshing ice water.

"I can’t wait for Tyler to learn what ‘and then’ means. I want to tell him to eat some chicken and then he can have a g-r-a-p-e." I had to spell grape, because it’s one of the forbidden words in our house. You can’t say it unless you are prepared to hand him a few. I tried Pig-Latin, but there’s something off-putting about saying rape-gays.

"Tyler already knows what ‘and then’ means. I do that with him every day."

Not knowing who was lying to me, I said, "Seriously?"

"Yep. He knows it and understands it. You just got played."

I looked back at Tyler and asked him.

"TyTy, did you just play me?"

Tyler turned to face me and laughed!**

This marks the second time that Tyler has “played” us/me like a fiddle. Little boogersnot. This is where communication is key. It’s only a matter of time before he comes up to me and says, “Dad, mom said it’s ok if I stay the night at Todd’s house if it’s ok with you.”

Riiiiiiiiiight. Sure she did buddy.

** I swear I’m not making this up.

Two weeks ago, I picked up a bunch of lumber, stain and a few pieces of hardware. Oh, and five hundred pounds of sand. After cutting everything to size, Sarah helped me with the two coats of red stain. Last week, construction began. Sarah’s parents came over after the frame was assembled. Her dad provided a few of the critical parts; steering wheel, grill, and emblems. He also helped with some of the finer aspects of the assembly, and some much needed muscle for carrying the completed – sans sand – assembly to its permanent home. And, thanks to his help, I now know how to properly use a wood chisel.

If I had any doubts that Tyler would like his new convertible, they quickly disappeared when he squealed with delight.

Now that Tyler has his own wheels, there will be no stopping him.

If you want to see all of the sandbox pictures, you can view them on my photo site. I didn’t take any "in progress photos" because it was already a big enough project, and I didn’t want to stop every half hour to snap off some pictures.

Tyler loves his sandbox. For the curious. It’s 4 ft. wide, and 8 ft. long. The sand area is 6.5 ft. long, with the other 1.5 ft. being the storage area that we keep his toys in. Err… I mean… that’s where the engine is.

Delilah has a bit of a quirk that Sarah and I have exploited, much to our my amusement. Whenever she is introduced to something she has never seen before, Delilah tends to be wary of it. What I do, at that point, is start chasing her around the house with said object. Here, just watch this video.

It appears that Tyler may have picked up on this little “game” of mine. And he seems to love it as much as I do.

Delilah and Tyler are loving each other more and more every day. He’s finally getting to the age where he can play, and Delilah couldn’t be happier with that.

Note: The first video was shot two months after we brought Delilah home with us. She was found next to a dumpster by a couple college girls and they couldn’t keep her at their apartment. We adopted her. She was severely underweight at the time, and was still quite underweight at the time of the video. She looks much healthier (pure freakin’ muscle) now, as you can see in the second video.

Sarah attended a bridal shower last Saturday. Shortly after she left the house, we traded a few text messages. I feel that only parents will be able to fully appreciate the first two messages.

(Joe) Two words: poop blowout.
(Sarah) Sick. Were there rocks in it?
(Joe) No… Just a bunch of poop. Reminded me of the elephant story you told me earlier.

Yeah… Parenthood is fun.

Note: The picture above is Tyler’s “I’m pooping” face. He’s going to hate me when he’s a teenager.

We are blessed to have an extremely well-mannered baby, and have been able to take Tyler with us to dinner quite a few times. It’s a modified FNDN – less about just Sarah and I – but it’s still nice to get out of the house together, even if we do have a third wheel with us. We had a FNDN yesterday. I spent much of the day hanging up a privacy fence (and received a wicked sunburn as a result) and felt like it was deserved. We went to a restaurant called Mad Anthony’s.

Our waitress’ name was Sheila. She is an attractive, punky-looking girl, with a piercing in her lip. At one point, she asked how my drink was. I told her it was quite good and she would have to try it when she turns 21. She looked like a junior in high school, but she informed me that she recently celebrated her 22nd birthday.

A few minutes later, she was waiting on the table next to us. It was occupied by three blue-collar guys who appeared to work at the local factory. Sheila’s back was to us while she took their orders. Tyler turned to look at her stare at her… then proceeded to reach out and grab her butt.

The dudes at the table next to us told Tyler “way to go” and asked for high fives from him. Looking back, I’m surprised that I wasn’t mortified about him grabbing her butt, but I actually thought it was hilarious. Sarah made a comment about Sheila being a cougar at 22. I didn’t say anything aloud, but thought to myself, “That’s my boy.”

The moment we got in the car, Sarah – who didn’t bring her cell phone – said, “Dial Melanie and give me your phone.”

I did as ordered. After a couple seconds, Sarah said, “I have to tell you what Tyler just did.”

After telling the story to her BFF, Sarah turned to me and said “Melanie said ‘he is his father’s son.’”

Indeed.

Although my parents aren’t the most tech savvy people I know, they still managed to burn the video to a DVD and sent it to me via manila envelope. Subsequently, Sarah and I have taken videos of Tyler crawling around the house, which I’ve posted to YouTube. One video was actually sent in to America’s Funniest Videos, so I’m not allowed to post it here, or talk about it, yet. The video of Tyler’s first crawls somehow never made its way online… Until now.

**** Errr… Nope, the video isn’t available. There were some technical difficulties with the disc that the video was recorded to. ****

We went to Canada two weekends ago (the weekend previous to Memorial Day weekend) for the wedding of one of Sarah’s cousins. Driving back from Canada, the GPS had us passing through my hometown of Flint, Michigan. My parents still live there, in my mom’s childhood home, so we stopped by to visit and stretch. Tim, my awesome step-dad, got the camera out to take some pictures. Dead batteries. Tim then got the camcorder out to take some video. Dead batteries. But, that was remedied with a power adapter, and a little bit of a guilt trip from the rest of us.

Tyler eventually made his way to the refrigerator and, more specifically, the magnets on it. Leaning against the side of the fridge were two food trays. You know what I’m talking about, right? They fold open and closed like an ironing board, allowing one to eat food while sitting on a couch. They’re quite handy, unless you’re a ten month old baby and they are standing between you and the magnets you so desperately desire. Tyler stood there, hands on the folded trays, when they did the thing that the ladder did in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. In the movie, Clark Griswold is standing on a ladder and hanging Christmas lights from his house. He inadvertently staples his shirt sleeve to the house and, when he yanks himself free, the ladder upon which he is standing pulls away from the house. It sways to the precarious point where you’re not sure if it’s going to fall backward or safely to its original position against the house. This is what was happening with Tyler.

I watched this happen, knowing that I could, potentially, have a very upset baby, and yet I did nothing. Generally speaking, if it won’t result in a hospital visit or expensive property damages, I let Tyler learn the consequences of his actions. I said something to that effect, and I fear I’m coming across on the video as an uncaring parent. The thing is, I viewed that as a controlled environment. I was there, and I knew that the worst that would happen would be a bump on Tyler’s head. I don’t want him to learn that lesson from pulling on a heavy TV or a dresser or bookcase that isn’t tethered to a wall. Those consequences could be disastrous. And, yes, I am spilling all this here in the hopes that you, dear readers, will validate my thought process.

My mom couldn’t stand by and allow the shenanigans to unfold, so she pulled the trays away. This left Tyler balancing on his own, with nothing to hold onto. This is nothing new, as Tyler stands on his own quite often. But, instead of falling to the ground and crawling to the fridge, like he always does, Tyler WALKED to it!!!! His first real steps were caught on video!

Video not playing? Want to view it larger? Watch it on YouTube by clicking here.

I simply find it amazing that a ten month old baby would make the decision to try to take a step, especially when he knows that it would be easier to just crawl. Parental pride aside, watching a baby think and make decisions and try new things is… well… "amazing" is the only word I can think of.

So, Tyler’s first crawls and his first walks were at my parents’ house. And, the latter probably wouldn’t have happened if my mom hadn’t taken the food trays away. It’s interesting how things work out.