The Art of Parenthood #2: Being Needed by Your Children through Daddy-Daughter Dates

Daddy-daughter camping dates are the perfect way to bond.

 "Daddy?" my 3-year-old daughter's frightened, trembling, needy voice pleaded with me to be there for her all with one simple word. Her hand touched my shoulder and I came out from under my covers with my headlamp shining in her face.

All the worry, concern, tiredness - everything - drained out of her voice when she knew I was there and awake.

"Oh," she said nonchalantly. "Why is the headlamp still on?"

We were on our first-ever Daddy-daughter camping date in Grand Teton National Park on Jackson Lake. It was 3:30 a.m. and the full moon shone overhead so brightly that I had woken up an hour earlier thinking it was predawn light coming into the tent. I was so alert thinking of impending morning that insomnia set in in a big way when I checked my clock and found out it was 2:30 a.m. So I had finally turned on my headlamp and started to read a book I had brought for just such an occasion.

But when her little hand touched my shoulder and I heard that wavering, higher-pitched-than-normal voice, I felt needed in a way I don't think I ever have before. It felt... good. Insanely good. I felt loved, appreciated, and even depended on. I knew had I not been there immediately for her, she would have burst into hysterics instead of calmly laying back down and falling instantly to sleep, which is precisely what she did when I told her I was just reading, tucked her back in, and kissed her goodnight.

Daddy-daughter camping also helped her feel needed, as I was
able to let her help gather kindling for our fire. She loved it.

Being needed may be the greatest thanks a parent ever receives. Had she awoken during our Daddy-daughter date crying for Mommy I would have been heartbroken. But she wanted me. Needed me. That is all the validation I ever need as a parent. And she made me laugh with her abrupt mood change, which made it all the richer.

The Daddy-daughter date came about because we have been having discipline issues lately with our son, 4. He is testing boundaries and really pressing us to see if we can make child-shaped holes in the wall. He began voicing to his mother recently how he feels like his only interactions with me were for discipline, and I could feel distance mounting because of it, as could my wife. I scheduled a Daddy-son camping date with him just to let him know that I love him, like to be with him, do things with him, and most importantly can do more with him than discipline.

We had a great time. We got doughnuts and other snacks from the store, we headed into the mountains, set up the tent together and he fell asleep as I read to him from a children's chapter book. The event brought us closer together and I can honestly say I haven't needed to discipline him as much since, although there have been plenty of bumps in the road. We are also more liable to play together again, something that was beginning to lack in our relationship as he did so many naughty things that could make Curious George blush. I'm now more of a necessity in my son's life since I took him camping.

So the Daddy-daughter date was a continuation of that. And boy did it ever work. Leading up to the camping with her after hearing of our son's experience, she would pump her fist and say "YES!" every time I told her it was almost time for Daddy-daughter date. After the fact, I feel closer to both my children after spending the night with them in the mountains. We laugh more together, they are more open to teasing sessions with me, and just enjoy being with me more than they have in a while.

Daddy-son camping helped build a relationship that had been
struggling through major obedience/discipline issues.

Of course it's a two-way road. I also feel more apt to want to do things with them, knowing now that they will be happy about it. Heck, my daughter has even been thanking Heavenly Father in her personal prayers for her Daddy-daughter date. There may be no better way than establishing one-on-one ties like this with children to truly establish a need- and love-based relationship, especially if things are faltering in the slightest. Try it for yourself and see, even if you don't camp. Just take your child to a movie, or to the park and really play with him or her. Certain doors can only open in a child's personality if you know where to find them. For me, I found doors in the mountains and forests, alone with my precious children.

The Perfect Moment: A Family Portrait

A camera wouldn't do it justice. A video camera would only be a shallow representation. The perfect moment cannot be captured in any place but your mind.

I had one tonight. It'll be there forever. I had no camera, no videos, and I don't care. It's better in the mind anyway.

I had taken my kids to the park to play while their mommy made dinner. They played, I watched with a smile. They brought in random strangers to be friends in their routines, both adults and children. They used the horseshoe pit at the park as a sandbox, driving toy tractors they had hauled from the house in my oldest daughter's pink bike bag over manufactured hills and valleys.

As I watched them play with a warm smile, my wife unexpectedly came to join us with a stroller used as a dinner cart. Had we been there so long already? She pulled out soup and biscuits and we sat on a blanket. My kids built an imaginary fire by collecting all the loose branches they could into a pile and pretending to strike between one and five matches. We then made s'mores on the fake fire, describing every gooey bit as we stacked them up for each other. When I needed a marshmallow for my stick, my oldest daughter ran to a random point along the fence 50 yards away, grabbed marshmallows, and trotted back, placing the invisible fluff on every minor point she could find on my roasting stick. My younger daughter wanted more substance to her food. She had been begging for service berries from behind the fence. She asked with points and grunts since she is only 14 months old. I was happy to oblige.

No matter how well I describe it, what picture I take, or how you envision it, the full feeling will not be clear to you. It was special because it was us. Mundane yet unique. Simple yet perfect. I was in the park for 3.5 hours and never wanted to leave. I only did because it was the kids' bedtime. Family love can make just about any moment perfect. And for me today, it was an unexpected picnic in the park with the people I couldn't live without surrounding me. There is an underlying power in family. Despite imperfections, moments like this speak of perfection more than any art masterpiece. Yes, despite flaws and problems, a family is a perfect unit.

I will do everything in my power to protect the one entrusted to me.

Not much captures the feeling better than a photo like this, but it
is still a shallow comparison that lacks warmth and love,
especially for those outside my family.

It's a small world after all: How the world expands as we age

One of life's biggest paradoxes is that the world enlarges as we grow up. It's not that it physically expands, it's just that our perception of it does. Case in point: looking at a map of Australia, you think it's this tiny continent. Then you get there and try to drive from Sydney in southeast Australia to the Great Barrier Reef in northeast Australia. After several days of non-stop driving on the wrong side of the road without any sign of colorful little fishies and brilliant coral displays, you realize Australia is bigger than it's boomerang-shaped self looks to be on a map. This happened to me when I was 14. If I ever go back, I will fly to northeast Australia to experience the Great Barrier Reef since I never made it as a kid. We way underestimated the size of that world.

But that's nothing. We live in tiny Wilson, Wyoming. When I grew up, I remember the sign that read Wilson: population 100. Nowadays, it's a whopping 250 on that sign. The closest town to Wilson is Teton Village, basically a ski resort with a post office. The next closest town is Jackson, known by many as Jackson Hole, though that term technically encompasses the whole valley. We love to go to Teton Village on our bikes in the summer because 1) We have a bike path that leads there basically from our house and 2) They have a fountain/patio area with a stream running through it that our kids love to play at.

But Teton Village is something else entirely to our daughter: the edge of the world. We found this out today as we drove past the road leading to Teton Village.

"Look!" my 3-year-old daughter said excitedly. "I saw the way to Teton Village!"

I acknowledged her astuteness since she repeated the mantra until I did. When I did, it got cuter.

"I saw the way to Teton Village!" she said. "It's over there on the other side of the world!"

We laughed and she covered her adorable little face sheepishly. I didn't even bother to correct her, because to her, that's as far as we go in that direction, generally. So it's the edge of the world. That creek they love to play in at Teton Village might as well flow off a sharp edge and fall past a turtle holding the world on its back.

I don't know whether or not it's a good thing that I know a bit more than my daughter about how expansive the world is. On one hand, I have loads of amazing experiences getting to know the world I live in. On the other hand, the world no longer fits in the palm of my hands or revolves around me. If only I could remember what it's like to see the world as my daughter sees it - a small and friendly place where almost everyone loves me. How much would be different if everyone could see the world that way?

Go on. See the world like a child sees it.

Avoiding "Sanctuaries of misbehavior" for children

A grocery store is one place that can be a sanctuary for misbehavior.
The key is to not allow any behavior you wouldn't at home.

It is easier to enforce family rules when you're in your element. When we are at home, we can deal with individual situations consistently every time. It is easy to set boundaries and let children deal with the consequences.

However, grocery stores, church and even our home when guests visit can become "sanctuaries of misbehavior" unless we, as parents, are consistent with our parenting guidelines even there. In other words, children can figure out you may not be able to discipline them the same way during church as you would at home. Indeed, they figure out they can get away with things they couldn't get away with at home. They test their boundaries in all situations.

For instance, I recently shattered my kneecap, article forthcoming. Since this happened, I have had to adapt my parenting style a little since I cannot always move to enforce discipline. My wife and I began to notice the kids weren't as quick to obey me since they knew I wouldn't chase them down and help make it happen if they didn't obey quickly. Some would probably term their behavior "running wild."

Maybe sometimes the correction for misbehavior will have to come after the fact. For instance, a friend of ours taught us to use "reverent practice." When the children misbehave in church, whether it be by attempting to wander the aisles, crawl under the pews, or backflipping off the pulpit, we for a while had reverent practice when we got home. This also happened after irreverent prayers or family home evenings. In reverent practice, we place the children in chairs and have them fold their arms, put their feet in front of their chair, not fidget, and remain quiet. Until they do, they remain on the chair. The contest of wills isn't always short, but it has been effective in teaching our kids to remain reverent during the appropriate times. Now, we rarely have to discipline during or after church.

We also have a zero-tolerance standpoint for noise. If they make an unholy racket in Sacrament meeting, we escort them to the foyer, where - this is important - they stay on our lap or we hold them, aloft from anything that could be considered fun. Otherwise they would view these forays to the foyer as a reward for being loud during a dry talk. The lap approach probably won't be appropriate with teenagers, so it's best to start early so you don't have to when that time comes.

How many times have you seen a child screaming their head off in a grocery store, fully knowing the embarrassment they are causing, while you can't take the established recourses from home like timeout or sending them to a room or whatever to scream their lungs out? What can you do about this? Exit the store immediately. Go to the car. Sit the child in their carseat. Return to the store only when they have calmed down. I've also had to use the car approach for midnight screaming sessions or naughty children once we've reached the lap/foyer stage at church.

If children can sense the boundaries are always in place, no matter the locale, they will modify their behavior eventually to fall in line with expectations, unless they are stubborn or discipline has remained unenforced for too long.

What do you do to avoid sanctuaries of misbehavior for your children?

Velvet Nose: Moments that matter with your kids

Singing incorrect lyrics is just one way to strengthen your family.

We sing primary songs to our two older children as part of the bedtime ritual most nights. During requests, they often get to the point where they sing the entire song to you to request that you sing it. They love the tradition, and it really does help calm them down and get them ready for bed.

One of the songs is one my children call "The Bluebird Song" but is actually called "My Heavenly Father Loves Me." They call it that because the opening line says: "Whenever I hear the song of a bird, or look at the blue, blue sky." So they just kind of ran with it and it became "The Bluebird Song." I actually had to ask my wife the real title just now.

One lyric in the song is, "Whenever I touch a velvet rose, or walk by a lilac tree, I'm glad that I live in this beautiful world, Heavenly Father created for me." And when I sing this to them, I always substitute "nose" for "rose" and poke their noses lovingly. Every time, they burst into laughter and correct me with their "Daddy-you're-being-silly voices."

"Velvet rose!" they emphasize. I'll sometimes alter the lyrics here and there just to elicit this reaction, but this one I do almost every time. It's almost become part of the song, sort of like a round. I love it, and by the delighted voices of my children when I boofer the lyrics, they love it too.

This is the kind of moment every parent should cultivate with their children. It is so important to develop inside jokes, quirky and silly repeating jokes, and little rituals that help you bond. This is a major strengthener to any family, even though the events often seem minor. Look for ways to cultivate these minor moments that will become lasting memories for both you and your children. And beyond that, it socializes your children, teaching them how to be a friend in part because you are being their friend with the kind of moments friendship are made of.

What rituals have you found in your family which strengthen you in minor ways?

Modern Mormon Men: Guest Post: Parenting With Zone Defense

It's just as easy as it looks...

Modern Mormon Men Guest Post: Parenting With Zone Defense: My first guest post on Modern Mormon Men is a condensed version of this post. Choose whichever you like. If you have kids, you'll laugh wherever you read it. Enjoy!

Guest Post: A Fellow Apparent Parent

Happy Independence Day from Apparent Parent! What better way to celebrate Independence Day than to provide you with the first post on the site that isn't coming from me? This blog can now celebrate it's liberation from my tyrannical, writer-crampy hand. With that, enjoy this post from guest author Lisa Gioia-Acres.

“She’s such a mother, isn’t she?” 

My daughter said those words to a friend of hers as I placed a plate of cheese and crackers on the coffee table.  Dinner was still about 30 minutes from being ready and I wanted to ensure my guests were not going hungry.  Yes, I guess I am a “mother,” the good kind, not the one with a swear word after it. 

Years ago I attended a function for my daughter’s school where she and several students were being honored for their academic accomplishments.  I mingled with other parents, many of them prominent members of the local community; their name tags identifying them with their company names.  My tag just had my name on it.  When someone asked me what I did, the words came out of my mouth before I realized what I was saying.  “I’m just a parent.” 

At the time I was a full-time student working toward my master’s degree and was not gainfully employed.  I felt “less-than” amongst my peers who were successful in business. 

It was when my daughter went up to the podium and gave a speech that I realized just what a fool I was.  Being “just a parent” to that incredible young woman I gave birth to and raised made me the most successful person in the room. 

Since that day I have joined the ranks of the successful; I am a practicing historian, college professor, and still chase dreams of glory.  But I also cook everything from scratch for dinner guests, teach my children and grandchildren the beauty and practicality of planting a garden, make sure the kids are bathed and well-fed, and cuddle and kiss them incessantly.

Yep.  I’m a mother alright.  I would not want any other label placed on me.  

By Lisa Gioia-Acres

Author bio:
It took me a long time to believe I am a writer, much less be able to call myself one. In addition to writing, which has been my best psychoanalyst for many years, I am a historian who specializes in documenting life stories. I teach both history and anthropology. I am an animal lover and caregiver, a mom, wife, and friend. I am a blessed woman who calls herself the "optimist," as I believe there is good out of every life experience. Thank you for visiting and allowing me to share a bit of my story with you.

Changing relationships with your kids: After the new addition

One of life's only true constants is change. I don't know who first became aware of that fact, but it's true.

This morning I realized how quickly those changes can come when my 2-year-old daughter sneaked up into bed with us and lay on top of me spread eagle for 20 minutes sucking her thumb.

This may not seem like an alert to change, but for me it was. Though my daughter will always find time to play with me, wrestle or build forts, cuddling has always been Mommy's domain. During family prayers, she sits on Mommy's lap. When she gets an "owie," she runs to Mommy. When she falls off the back of the couch right after we told her not to climb on the back of the couch, Mommy gets a cuddle buddy until its better.

This one has thrown a wrench in family workings. For me,
that has meant two other kids that love me a lot more for
coming home after work.

But since the arrival of our third child, I've noticed a change that's come over her. No longer does she arch her back in protest if I pick her up and cuddle her. Now she almost always chooses my lap for prayers - voluntarily. And this morning I got blissful wake-up cuddles with my beautiful daughter, even though Mommy was readily available, albeit less responsive. When I left for work, she cried. A month ago she would barely acknowledge me as I was leaving.

Now to the psychology of the matter. Since Baby's arrival, Mommy has been pretty wrapped up in feeding, changing and just plain holding the little girl, who often fusses because, well, she can't do ANYTHING for herself. This has left the kids more to their own devices, for better or worse. But when Daddy comes home, suddenly they've got someone there who isn't providing immediate care for someone completely helpless. Not that that means I don't ever have all three at once. Just last night I was sitting on our big, comfy chair while holding my youngest while my wife planned out a coming vacation. Soon my daughter came walking up with a book and made space on my lap so I could read to her. When my 3-year-old got the memo I was reading, he bee-lined it for my lap too, all but squishing the newborn between them on my chest. I literally had to find creative ways of holding the weight of the older kids off the youngest one while reading. I often used my reading arm to subtly push them away from the baby. Good times.

I guess my point is that sometimes it feels like your kids love you a lot more than other times. It's OK. It's natural. They'll come around. Just keep showing love and eventually it will be returned, even if it comes when the child makes it to adulthood. And the best part: When it hasn't always been that way, it feels so much better when your sweet little daughter cuddles into you for 20 minutes when she could have had her Mommy.

That is what parenting is all about.

I'm one lucky dude, even if I forget sometimes

It's easy to forget how blessed you are sometimes when
you're changing the 400th dirty diaper of the day.
Taking a moment to reflect on the love of family
changed a bad day for me into a great one.

I'm one lucky guy, but life has a way of making me forget that sometimes. I get so caught up in trying to balance my time that sometimes I forget how amazing my circumstances are.

Most recently, with the arrival of our third child, I have had very little time to myself. Perhaps more importantly, I've hardly even been able to look at my wife, much less have some relaxing one-on-one time with her. Last night I came home from work to find her feeding the baby, as usual, while my two older kids demanded playtime. I'm not scared of playtime, but sometimes I just want to relax.

Since what I want generally means about as much as a Star Trek convention in the grand scheme of things, I went outside and played with my kids. That could be a bit of an exaggeration. I mowed the lawn, and the kids followed me outside excitedly to watch me mow through this summer's until-now virgin grass.

My son was upset I couldn't mow the grass right by the porch. Since I didn't feel like weed eating it either, he took matters into his own hands. He snagged handfuls of the long grass and chased me around while I pushed the mower and threw the grass into my path so it would get "eaten" by the lawn mower. It was hilarious watching him sprint up to the mower, which he's scared of, toss a few blades of plucked grass, and dash off again at top speed to make sure he wasn't eaten himself.

This whole time I'm mowing, I'm thinking how much I'd just like to be hiking with my wife on one of the first nice days of the year. While thus lamenting, my wife came out with our newborn and stood watching me finish off the lawn. My son then stood next to her and my daughter filed into place next to him, curls bouncing as she grinned at me.

It was a "masterpiece moment." My whole family lined up in descending order, back light streaming through their hair to give them golden halos in the afternoon sun. All (except the infant) had genuine smiles as they watched me trudge across the lawn through one of my last strips of uneaten grass. Suddenly, I wasn't doing the yard work because I had to. I was doing it for that beautiful family of mine. For that instant, I couldn't have changed anything to make my life better.

It was a reminder I needed. When we get caught up in the drudgery of raising children, we can look to those silver-lined moments to count our blessings. Ever since this happened, I haven't been able to erase the image from my mind - not that I've wanted to anyway. I hope to always be able to remember that between crying sessions, pouty fits and picky meals, my family is as about as perfect as they come. And no quantity of bad days will ever change that.

Juggling babies: The transition from man to zone defense

Having three kids requires learning to juggle. But the
cargo is a little more precious than colored balls.

I'm pretty sure it was Confucius or some other wise philosophy type guy that once posited “When your third child you have transition to zone defense you must.”

The syntax makes me wonder if it was Yoda.

Who cares? I'm learning after our third child arrived last week just how true the principle is. Before, my wife would take one child and I would take the other, keeping mischief to a somewhat manageable minimum in the process. However, after my wife delivered our newest daughter with some complications, the man defense has been tossed. Now, my resting wife's zone happens to be a very large armchair with a sleeping infant on her chest. Since she's on doctor's orders to rest, relax and recuperate, I'm pretty OK with that, if not a little jealous.

Let's just say my zone covers a little more ground. Today, my zone starts in the kitchen, where the wife feeds me orders on how to cook up her favorite multi-ingredient oatmeal. She gives me the directions mostly from between snatches of slumber as she cuddles our snoozing baby daughter on her lap. It's the first time in history oatmeal has taken more than six minutes to prepare. I think I take an hour and burn the bottom layer. The process is something like this:

Me: What do I do here?

Her: Umm...zzzzzz

Me: Yes?

I wait five minutes, then remind her I asked a question while gently awakening her with a hand on her arm. Breakfast is her request after all.

Her: Oh sorry. One cup oatmeal and one cup water.

I pour oatmeal in the scalding hot pan and watch smoke drift dangerously close to the fire alarm. Then I add water.

Her: Bring the water to a boil before you add the oatmeal.

Me (to self): Now she tells me.

Me (to her): Then what?

Her: Get some Craisins and put them in after the oatmeal softens up.

Me: Where are they?

Her: Buried in the pantry somewhere.

Me (to self): I gotta go into that mess? We've only got like nine square feet of space in there under our staircase, which means the roof is widely variable in height, and we have six months of food storage crammed in there.

I find the Craisins stashed behind a box of graham crackers which is behind a can of unsalted peanuts which is underneath a 50-pound bag of rice.

Me: How many Craisins?

Her: Like a handful.

Me (to self): Does she mean a me-size handful or a her-size handful or a kid-size handful? These are hugely varying portion sizes in our household. I try to guess what her hand would pull out of the bag and scatter the Craisins into the oatmeal like a farmer tossing seed around a fertile field.

Me: Is that it?

Her: No. Two tablespoons brown sugar, a dash of vanilla, the rest of the can of evaporated milk and chopped walnuts. Use the small food processor.

I pour in the can of milk and realize I've drowned the poor oatmeal.

Me: Is it supposed to look like a few grains of oatmeal are throwing a pool party under a cow's udder?

Her: Add the other ingredients and see what happens.

I dutifully toss in everything else. Now it looks like the oatmeal invited some risque walnuts going shell-less at the milky pool party.

Me: Should I add more oatmeal now?

She's back to sleep so I repeat the question.

Her: If it's runny add just a little.

I wonder if the pool party counts as runny before I toss some more uninvited guests into the ruckus. It luckily thickens up and I feed it to my wife. Somehow she approves.

Long tangent aside, the kids aren't awake for the cooking time, or it would triple my already ridiculous time in the kitchen. When they do wake up my zone becomes feeding the two kids who don't want food while my wife occupies her big comfy chair snuggling seven pounds of perfection. Not that I'm complaining. I saw what she went through this week between childbirth and complications. The chair is hers dangit.

Then my zone shifts outside where I take the kids to the park. I get steamrolled, grass-stained, jumped on, slid upon and more. My kids ask me to climb the playground equipment in a different place, which means doing it all with upper body strength. I dutifully ratchet myself up some bars going across a bridge, only to find I have seriously strained some muscles in my neck and shoulders, giving me the equivalent of a kinked neck after a week of camping on sharp granite boulders without a pillow.

Park time is over, but the zone defense has only just begun. Returning home, I fertilize the lawn while doing my best to keep stray children from swallowing the weed pesticides in the lawn feed because they look like yellow Nerds.

Then my zone hops in the swagger wagon and goes to the store. My kids beg to get their own little grocery carts to help me pick up a grand total of four items. I relent, thinking I can manage for just four items. I rejoice when all the small carts are gone from their normal keeping place. This is the last time I'll rejoice before bedtime in my zone. My kids then proceed to profusely ignore me as I ask them to follow me into or out of the pharmaceutical section, where the kid vitamins and tiny colorful bottles are kept at my older daughter's eye level. Then I have to make a trip to the baby aisle, where my daughter wants to check out the Cinderella sippies. My son sprints around the corner and out of sight as I call him to come back. I decide at that point he's just going to have to get abducted or find me again on his own time. A couple minutes later I hear him whining for Daddy two aisles down. Finally figured out he ditched me and I had stopped chasing him. The baby aisle only has one of two items I need, so I return to the pharmaceuticals to find the missing link. Nothing but a bunch of colorful eye-level bottles for my girl. I think about stepping in line to talk to the pharmacist about where to find it, but the line is filled with about six women who look like they are there to fill out prescriptions for STDs.

I then wander the store trying to remember the last item on my list and to find an associate that can tell me where to find the other thing. I call my wife to remember item #4 and tell her I already want to throw my phone across the store. At some points, I want to just drag the minions behind me, but my kinked neck hurts so much I can barely turn around to find them much less actually carry them behind me. I look like a sideways hunchback with my neck cocked to one side grotesquely. While I try to usher my daughter away from the cute little bottles, of which she wants to know the contents of every one, she informs me she needs to go poopy. Now.

Exasperated, I toss the two items I had managed to find on top of some feminine hygiene products and race my daughter into the bathroom, where someone had viciously sprayed the entire seat with man urine.

“Are you serious?” I say out loud. My daughter takes my exclamation up as a chant and turns it into a song, altering the words to her own as time goes on. “Are you serious, are you serious, are you pear hook, are you bear head...” etc. It's actually really cute, especially when combined with the potty stalling dance she's doing. So while she sings I do a quick wipe down on the toilet seat with a wad of toilet paper fat enough to choke Rosie O'Donnell. I rocket the singing and dancing girl into place on a toilet protector hoping it'll do it's job.

When all is done there – I won't go into detail – I go back and pick up my two items off the feminine hygiene shelf and usher my children off to find a store rep. I wander the whole store looking for someone available to tell me where the heck to find the item. No luck. I go back to the pharmacy (none of this is as easy as I make it sound – remember, two rambunctious children.) The line has dwindled and filled with old men instead of STD magnets, so I step in line and let my kids peruse baby shampoo while I wait. I get to the front of the line to be told by a crotchety pharmacist they don't know where anything outside their “box” is. He motions me toward the customer service department.

“There's a customer service department?” I ask him incredulously, practically slapping my forehead at my own scatter-brained idiocy. I go there. Two Russian associates seem to be flirting at the customer service desk. I interrupt without tact, asking for the rather unflattering, post-pregnancy item I'm looking for.

“If we have that it'd be in aisle 4,” she tells me.

“Nope,” I tell her confidently. “Just spent a half hour or more there.”

The flirty guy tells me just last week he was stymied when some woman asked for the same thing. Probably one of our friends. This enrages me because it means a trip to another store. One with toys. My kids like toys. I storm out of the store with three of my four items and get blown off when I ask my kids to hold my hands through the busy parking area. My daughter almost gets squished because of her refusal. I finally ignore my pain and bodily heft my kids off the pavement and throw them in the van. They throw a party in the backseat instead of obeying me when I ask them to get in their seats. I finally place them both, screaming, into their car seats.

I'm amazed by this point I have had the wherewithal to avoid making child-shaped holes in any walls. This is somehow worse than another time I went shopping.

I take them to the other store and, having learned from experience, I put them in a cart and wheel them directly to the baby portion of the store, where I find the item immediately. My kids want to see toys. I take them to the toys. I spend a long time at the toys. I haul kids whining about me not buying them toys away from the toys. I pick up an enormous plastic jar of comfort food on the way to the checkout. When we make it to the car, the kids again get their fiesta on in back. Not wanting to chase them down with a sore neck in a cramped space, I do the only logical thing I can think of: I tell them I'm leaving and start to drive. Like mice sniffing cheese at the maze's end, they scurry to their seats, where I can then buckle them into place for the final push into the endzone.

Upon arrival at home, I feed them a hasty dinner of cinnamon toast and put them to bed alone while my wife cuddles our infant daughter on the couch, mostly asleep.

In case you hadn't figured it out yet, zone defense is a lot harder to play than man. I just hope it isn't like this every day, or I'll find a way to switch back to man, no matter what Yoda has to say.

Seven pounds of perfection: Welcoming a new baby to the world

Who wouldn't want toes this perfect?

Perfect.

I can think of no better way to describe my new daughter to you. One word encompasses so much I can't even fathom it. Her tiny toe bubbles make my heart melt. The dimples on the back of her hands make my mouth form a silent "Ohhh" when she's sleeping in my arms. The dimples on her chubby face are even better.

She already has more hair than me, but that's because of this. Her dark hair is a departure from the two blondies I started out with. I love it. After three days with her as a part of my life, I love her in ways only a parent can understand. As my mother puts it, our daughter came into the world "trailing clouds of glory." The clouds were tailing her with good reason. How can you beat perfection?

She represents all that is important to me. We come into life perfect. We strive to leave it perfect. We just mar the perfection along the way. It is sad to me that at some point in the future, my daughter will be less than perfect. It kills me to know that choices she will someday make will cause those clouds of glory return to heaven to follow the next perfect baby down instead.

This thought makes me want to be a better man. How could I possibly let her become less than perfect? How can I keep her as perfect as possible without attaining perfection myself? In a major irony, I hold in my arms a perfect example of all that we should be. As the parent, I should be the example. But that's like trying to be an example to Christ himself. She'll learn from me. No doubt about that. She'll love me. I'll make sure of that. She will love playing with her daddy. I've already set the precedent there with my first two kids.

But she'll see my shortcomings, because I still have plenty. I cannot think of a stronger motivator for repentance and striving to live a perfect life than holding seven pounds of perfection in my arms. Her heavy eyelids rarely open, but that doesn't keep me from being able to see the halo blazing above her head. When she does manage to prop her eyes open, I can't believe the depth of life I see in her. Newborns are just that: newly born. They have a minuscule, uncoordinated body, but looking into their eyes tells it is not the beginning of all they know. Just a new beginning. A new body. A fresh start. Perfection, for a while.

We all have the chance to attain perfection, or else there wouldn't be a commandment telling us to be perfect. We have all been perfect at some point. There is no reason we cannot attain that again. We just have to work at it a lot harder than those babies who just crossed the veil.

Fatherhood and motherhood are the fastest, most effective ways to achieve that. With three kids, I can assure you I haven't attained perfection, but as a parent you get a small glimpse into what God sees. And that is worth a trillion sermons. If a picture speaks a thousand words and a toddler speaks a hundred words, a baby preaches the whole gospel just by coming to your home. All from seven pounds of purity.

Flashback to childhood: Why kids don't like chores

It's easy to take the easy way out when
doing chores, and kids know it.

As I was voluntarily doing the dishes tonight for my 9-months pregnant wife, I had a flashback to by childhood. Tonight, the table was littered with enough crumbs to feed all the mice in the long grass behind our house for a week. This is actually a normal scenario in my household with the two self-feeding tornadoes I call my kids.

But as I was finishing emptying the sink, I had a heck of a time convincing myself to wash the tables and counter down. First I thought my wife would think I had done enough because I already did the dishes. But I looked at the table, knowing I didn't want my pregnant wife to have to do it. I still had to actively campaign against myself to choose the right.

Even as I took the rag and began to wipe the table, a wicked little thought hit: I could wipe all the crumbs onto the ground and not have to carry a mass of bread mush back to the sink. The wife wouldn't be the wiser since she expects to need to sweep after every meal, courtesy our children.

As I had this wicked little thought, I flashed back to my childhood, when I always just did the lazy thing, brushing crumbs from counters and tables onto the floor where it was no longer my problem. I can remember countless discussions with my parents about how to sweep the icky-nasty crumbs into my palm to carry over to the trash (trash compactors didn't exist back then, to my knowledge.) I knew how to do it, but my child's mind just rationalized naughtily that if I continued to do it wrong, one of two things would happen: 1. Nothing. 2. I would stop getting asked to do that chore. After all, I was young enough that my parents could actually believe I wasn't capable of doing it right, right?

Back then, it wasn't so much about getting out of work as it was about touching someone else's food particles. The concept just didn't appeal to me. Especially since the moist rag would turn it into a mush that felt like gooey oatmeal inside the rag, which I then had to clean out in the sink.

Not to say I didn't have my lazy streak. We washed all pots and pans (the big dishes, we called them) by hand. Nothing coated with Teflon touched the washing machine. So when it was my turn to wash the big dishes, I did a really cruddy job. On purpose. Because I didn't like it. And knew my Mom would just do it if I didn't. I'm pretty sure I left greasy streaks, bits of meat and entire spaghetti noodles still stuck to the bottom of the pan in the dishes I pronounced clean. Then when I got confronted on the crapitude of my work, I used this incredibly valid excuse: "I don't know how to do the big dishes." This was usually followed by a lengthy lesson on how to wash pots and pans satisfactorily. I knew how to do it. I was a smart kid. Did my parents buy that I didn't know how? No. I'm sure of that, in retrospect.

But my good-natured mother just took over when I let some slack in the reins, and yes, even stopped asking me to perform the chores on which my performance was an enormous bit of theater performance.

So sometimes the kids don't want to do the chores for reasons they don't state, like me with the mushy crumbs. And other times, they will convince you they don't know how to do a chore they can do adequately just to wear you down.

Don't let it happen. The kids are smart, but you still probably realize what they're doing. Don't pretend like you're falling for the routine. You know your kids. Give them the benefit of the doubt, when possible, but don't let them feed you excuses that an elephant couldn't swallow. You'll get a kid that will more often do things he/she doesn't want to do just because you asked.

How do you keep your kids honest about chore performance?

The view from behind God's door: Holding the door shut so we can progress

God's view of our life is a little clearer than our view of His. Yet we still
question his decisions for us constantly.

Last night, we went to my parent's house for dinner. This is always something my kids look forward to, peppering us with questions like, "Are we going to Grandma's house?" Then the excited squeal breaks out with the followup question: "Again?"

While we go for the food and the company, they go for the company and the toys. As if they have a choice anyway. But lately, we've had some severe discipline issues when we tell them it's time to leave Grandma's house. The very literal kicking and screaming begins in earnest.

This isn't a problem we've had to deal with a lot with our children. They are generally pretty even tempered. Our kids know if they want to cry they have to do it in their room where no one can hear them. Our 2-year old daughter is so accustomed to this routine that she'll sag her shoulders after her brother's offended her, cast her eyes down with an expert flick, jut her lip out like an icebreaker and run to her room whether there're icebergs in the hall blocking her way or not.

This melodramatic performance makes us laugh every time, but we do so as silently as possible so as not to reinforce the behavior. The nice thing is, we usually go and get her a few minutes later and she's happily playing by herself with some toys in the room by that point.

At Grandma's house, though, we have no system set up like that. Instead, when our 3-year-old boy began his fit about leaving, I put him in a spare bedroom and closed the door behind him. Since, like most good bedroom door locks, it locked from the inside instead of the outside, I had to hold the door to keep the little werewolf from busting the door down in his rage. I listened, sadly, as he pounded against the door, cried and screamed while I just kept holding the door closed. It was for the good of everyone in the house. Especially my son, in the long run. Any positive reinforcement for behavior like that sets the course for a lifetime of parents being trampled by tiny feet. But he hated the treatment. I may be the only one it was harder on than him. Though most of his tears were tears of frustration, I heard some real pain in his voice.

I stared at the door handle I was holding shut while it bounced and jiggled under my hand. My eyebrows arched in concern and my heart softened as he tried to get out - the way he thought was best for himself. It was hugely painful for me as a father to discipline in such a way I knew would bring the best results for everyone in the future.

As I held that door shut, I wondered what the view from behind God's door must look like. 6 billion kids, many of them trying to kill each other, all of them looking for answers to their pleas for help. How often must he hold the door shut on us, his children, so that we'll grow in the right directions? The answers to prayer usually come as "yes," "no," or "not yet." But when we so desperately want something, what must it be like for a loving Father in heaven to say "no" while holding the door shut on what we see as a way forward - maybe even the only way forward?

I don't envy His position. My own problems with basic discipline pale in comparison to Him having to tell someone "no" to a life-changing proposition. In the end, He knows best. He knows our strengths, weaknesses and time lines. When He holds doors shut on us, there is a reason for it. And we, the kicking and screaming 3-year-olds behind the closed door, too often ask why He doesn't care while He's holding us against our will.

Maybe the questions we should ask ourselves instead are: "Why is God holding this door shut? What door would he rather that I open? How can I go about opening that door?" If we but understand that 1. Heavenly Father loves us and 2. He is omniscient, we can see that He will chart our lives for our best if we allow Him. But if we keep kicking and screaming, sometimes He'll open doors that should never be opened to us to begin with.

When I finally opened the door to my son's tear-stained face, I did my best to explain why I did what I did. Then I took him in my arms as gently as I could and told him I loved him. When God holds those doors shut so that we can grow, don't lash out at Him. Let him show you His love. Watch for it. Ask for it. You'll feel it. Our understanding of His plan for us will eventually materialize, just maybe not on our time frame.

Have you ever felt like God held a door shut on you that you really wanted open only to find out why He did so later on in life?

.83 cents just doesn't pay the bills

The sum total from my awesome blogging empire to date.
But it's all "Pennies from Heaven."

You wouldn't believe how much .83 cents can feel like. That is my current total for running ads on this blog. I saw another blogger refer to them as "pennies from heaven."

The crazy thing is, that blogger was right. This blog is something I want to write, so any income, no matter how pithy when waging war against a stack of pediatric bills, just seems like a Wall Street bonus to me.

I feel blessed that I can bring in any amount of support for my precious little family. Hopefully I can expand the influence of this blog beyond my circle of friends at some point and maybe even start to write books that entertain people (see this post for a crowd favorite) while giving them nuggets of wisdom in stories like this that force people to say "How sweet!"

The nice thing that is also the curse is that so many people are paying me to write for them. I have outlets clamoring for my time and talents that want to pay me to do it. So unfortunately, my own projects, which I consider more important, sometimes get sidelined while I get paid to work. Dang them for giving me money. If only people would stop giving me work so I could really work on what I want to work on. And in case the word "work" wasn't in that sentence enough, here it is again: work.

And here's a bit of parenting advice just because that's what I do here: give every ounce of attention to a sick child you possibly can. Those kids are in need of love so badly when they are puking their guts out. They are probably confused, scared and, if the amount of regurgitation is any indication, super hungry. My kids have been extremely sick over the past couple weeks, and I have found I have drawn closer to both of them as I've cared for them and rubbed their backs while they do their thing. Both my son and daughter have been more loving since they got sick, but I think it's reciprocal more than anything.

All I know is I'm glad they were sickest on the weekend, because otherwise I couldn't have used the argument against my wife that .83 cents was not enough to take them to the emergency room.

If you like what I do here, please share it with friends and family. Writing is what I excel at, but if no one reads it, it's hard to get myself to write it. I need to know people are enjoying what I do. Even if it does net me mere "pennies from heaven."

Daddies shouldn't shop: A moral tale

Shopping from a list is best done by someone that can take
orders without question. I am not one of those people.

Daddies shouldn't shop. Let me rephrase that: Daddies shouldn't use Mommy's shopping list to go shopping.

During my singlehood, I almost enjoyed going to the grocery store. I walked in like I owned the place, looked for cheap, junky food, and bought it. Rarely did I spend more than $18 in a single trip to the grocery store. And those 18 greenbacks would generally carry me through most of a week with Party Pizzas, canned soup and a 5-pound sack of cheese with a side of tortillas. The food was tasty, cheap and easy to cook. I mean heck, a quesadilla takes all of 60 seconds to make in a microwave, give or take 7 seconds depending on model.

Back then, it was a manly display of power to walk up to a checkout stand with nothing green in my basket, only to watch the chubby cashier stare in horror at the nutrition facts on my selections as they convey past her check stand. I caught many surreptitious looks at my waistline. I'm sure they thought my belly, sucked in to the point of pain, would slump out over my belt at any moment like gooey bread dough. But alas, nothing like this ever happened, so I just got hateful stares from these poor women whose metabolism didn't support the same kind of lifestyle.

Manhood, in the end, is really about the power to make choices or veto them. So choosing to fill my shopping cart with enough fat to make Santa Clause cringe felt good. Felt right. Felt...*grunt*...manly.

Nowadays, I go to the store with a list my wife has e-mailed me at some point during the day - usually right before I leave work so I don't have any time to argue about what's on the list before I go and buy it - no questions asked. The list is filled with little notes, which are little more than veiled threats.

I look down the list, which 90 percent of is found in the produce portion of the store, a place I could never "afford" as a college student.

"Bananas (2 bunches)
"Apples (lots)
"Grapefruit (if they're not a bad price)
"Watermelon"

"Watermelon?" I ask myself out loud incredulously, knowing how expensive they've been lately.

"(yes, a watermelon," the list answers me, exasperated. "We're going to be sharing it with the family we're taking dinner to...and I'm pregnant! Won't be able to use that much longer)"

This is how my wife squelches my arguments before I call. She knows me well enough to know the things I'll argue about spending money on, so she insists and plays the prego card. Immasculated, I thump watermelons, trying to judge how many .49 cent pounds they weigh since the scales will just spin around so fast the needle bursts the glass and embeds itself in some nearby broccoli.

Worse yet, I had talked to her on the phone just before going to the store, and she told me not to buy a bunch of stuff that isn't on the list. She wants me home ASAP. Even so, I try to make myself feel manlier by calling her to question specific requests that would more than double the price.

"CANOLA oil mayo," the list tells me with emphasis.

I pick up my cell phone for the sixth time in the store: "Does it have to be 'CANOLA oil mayo' or can it be 'Olive oil mayo'?" I ask, pointing out the Canola oil mayo costs roughly what I would expect a jar of gold dust the same size to go for, despite the sticker that proclaims "Low Price!" in huge bold letters. This is what our store puts on their food right after significantly upping the prices on something, trying to fool you into thinking it's a sale item when in fact they are wrapping a string around your front tooth to gank it out. I'm not stupid.

"Well, the canola mayo should taste less olive-y, but what's the price difference?" she asks. I tell her. I hear her body slump to the floor as she faints. My 3-year-old son picks up the phone she dropped and I walk him through the resuscitation process, which involves wet fingers and ear canals. When she comes to, she decides the olive oil mayo is OK by her.

All right, score one for manhood and common sense!

I make probably seven of these questioning calls during my time at the store. Especially frustrating is this line: "Sub buns-the small yummy crispy kind :)" Despite the sideways smiley face, I'm a little confused by what she means. I scour the bakery aisle and find nothing that comes remotely close. Knowing the smiley will turn to a frowny if I don't get exactly what it's hoping for, I finally make an exasperated call after prodding various small sub-looking buns to check consistency: "Do you want to explain a little better what you mean by 'sub buns-the small yummy crispy kind'?"

She explains they were the ones we had with dinner when we had invited my parents for dinner a year or so ago. My Polaroid memory tries it's best to spit out a memory which I can then shake until a vague recollection shows up in ghost form in the background before materializing completely. But unfortunately, the image remains ghostly gray.

"We had my parents over for dinner?" I ask dumbly.

And this banter happens for the hour or so I wander the aisles feeling less and less masculine the whole way. By the time I've reached milk, I decide it's time to show my executive power as father and patriarch. I pick up the milk (2 gal 1%), and march triumphantly to the ice cream section, where I authoritatively throw two buckets of ice cream loaded with high-fat goodies into the cart, where they find a soft bed of greens to lay on. Then I run to the candy aisle and snag an 8-pack of fun-size Snickers (not as fun as full-size Snickers.)

As I check out, the cashier asks me how I am. I slowly nod and say, "I just went shopping."

"Enough said," she says.

"You'd be surprised how immasculating it can be to fill out a woman's shopping list," I tell her.

"Did you have to buy her tampons?"

"Fortunately, no," I reply, thinking back to other times when hordes of women swarmed around me in the sea of pink that is the tampon aisle while I desperately try to find the only plastic-wrapped case that is regular size, has wings and is not brand A, B,C or D. "She's pregnant otherwise I'm sure it would have been on the list."

We all have a good laugh about my list and I head for home eating fun-size Snickers. Once home, I forcefully show that I'm still not the one in charge by unpacking the groceries when my beautiful wife asks me to.

(Author's self-preservation note: I love my wife dearly. Don't take this column the wrong way.)

My eyes! Nintendo 3DS NOT suitable for children - or adults

Is it just me or am I seeing double? Playing the Nintendo 3DS
felt like trying to look at something stuck to my nose.

Allow me a geek moment. I have been interested in getting my hands on a Nintendo 3DS to test it out. For anybody that doesn't know what that is, it's basically the newest iteration of the Game Boy, but in a different stratosphere. Specifically, it features mind-bending, glasses-free 3D.

As a parent of two, I often look forward to video games when the kids drift off to sleep after hours of partying with each other in the backroom. It's something I can do quietly because the mute is almost always on when I play video games. However, sometimes I don't feel like having my 40" TV demanding my attention after the lights go out. So little screens are welcome at night.

However, Nintendo itself has warned that your eyeballs can have a bad hair day (let your imagination run wild with that mental image for a second) if you use the thing. When I got locked out of my house for three days while my wife was out of town with the keys, I was about to buy one of these $250 gadgets on an impulse, rationalizing that having a new toy would keep me out of trouble with the wife and kids out of town. But the only angelic voice I had in a sea of little red devils wanting a new gadget warned me I'd probably better try the thing out first.

I'm glad I did. I walked into Best Buy the other day and found a 9-year old child just finishing his tech demo with the shiny little blue device. Glad I didn't have to glare at him intimidatingly until he left it to me, I took it up and immediately felt my eyes go all wonky trying to read the 3D image on the top screen. It felt a little like crossing your eyes to look at a 3D dot art image, which were way cool in the early 90s, if I recall. I quickly found the depth slider on the right and adjusted it to where my eyes weren't screaming about having to look in so many directions at once.

The 3D image is crisp, but even adjusting to the most comfortable depth, it doesn't feel quite right. And of course, it's just a trick to make your eyes see two images at once. Apparently, my brain grasped this better than my eyeballs, and I felt a headache coming on quickly. Worst of all, jumping down to look at data on the lower screen really throws the eyes for a loop. You literally feel your eyes "shift" to see the 2-dimensional data. Yes, you can turn the 3D off entirely, but isn't that why you just spent $250 bones on the thing?

Sadly, I came away unimpressed with a minor headache after testing the thing for 15 minutes. In fact, I was seeing double for the next few minutes after I got off. My eyes just couldn't track as fast after playing with the thing. The good news? I don't have to spend $250 in the next little while. If the toy makes my adult head swim through the deep end so easily, I'd rather not even risk my kids getting their hands on something like that when they don't even know how to swim. Which is precisely why Nintendo issued the vision warning about the 3D for children under 6.

Having been a DS owner already, I know the powerful pull the little gadget had on little hands and eyes. So I think I'll skip bringing this one into a house where my kids love coloring on the DS. I think my kid's eyes will thank me for it. I'm pretty sure they'd develop lazy eyes or something worse if I let them play with it. I was halfway there myself just testing it out.

Besides, I can think of lots less expensive ways to get a headache.

Anyone else had a similar experience with this thing?

How to get your children to tell you they love you

“Daddy?”

The simple question hung like a tinkling bell in the air over my 2-year-old son's head. It stopped me from closing the door to his room after putting him to bed for the night.

“Yes?”

“I love you,” he followed up, more sugary than the dessert table at a Relief Society function. My heart drizzled down to my toes. I reopened the door and threw my arms around my little boy.

“I love you too,” I said as his arms tightened around my neck. “I love you too.”

This marked the first time he had ever gone out of his way to share that sentiment with me, though I had told him countless times. Worse yet, he constantly told Mommy how much he loved her. It grated on me.

I knew exactly why he had chosen that moment to tell me. He had just come home from a weekend at my wife's family's ranch, where he had gotten to see his beloved tractors in action. He now has three dang-near life-sized tractors that take up a good chunk of his room's footprint, and we now go out of our way to inform gift-givers “No more big toys! Please!” He loves those toys, but nowhere near as much as the real, drivable thing.

So after he came home and it was my turn to put him to bed, I seized the opportunity to get him talking about his trip. And boy did he ever jabber. I must have listened for 20 minutes while he gabbed – mostly incoherently – about the tractors and other experiences involving cows and mud that I couldn't quite piece together. He talked animatedly, with his hands telling the story better than his words sometimes. At one point, he was telling me how the tractor was rolling through the mud, and started making stirring motions with his hands. I listened and asked leading questions, smiling and nodding the whole time while wondering what the heck the kid was talking about.

It was only after this extended conversation that I finally got an unsolicited “I love you.” This was a powerful lesson to me. Talking to your children is incredibly important. He knew how much I loved him, I'd told him so many times and shown it in countless ways. But it wasn't until I let all the attention fall on him and his experiences that he wanted to tell me the same thing.

He was barely two years old, and had the propensity to talk a mile a minute, actually saying maybe one in every three words he actually paraded through his tiny cranium. So I understood very little of our 20-minute conversation, but the “I love you” was crystal clear.

It doesn't matter if you don't understand everything a child is saying – speaking with them from an early age is vitally important. It's proven to develop language capabilities, improve parent-child relationships, cut down on frustrated tantrums when they aren't understood, and most importantly show love rather than tell about it. Bantering with a child, encouraging conversation, and the natural corrections that occur during conversation will build a vocabulary (“We were on this part of the tractor that went up like this,” “Oh, a scoop?” “Yeah, we were on the tractor's scoop...”) and build a relationship.

In my opinion, there's things that have to start early or they may never happen. Just imagine trying to strike up a conversation with a teenager about the girl he likes in class if you never asked him what his favorite toy was when he was 3. Those pathways are vitally important, but difficult to stake out. A child's conversation may not be as enthralling as talking to a world traveler, but if you don't start beating a path through the brush when they are young, the path may never develop. Consequently, you'll be left with an overgrown, primitive, and unrecognizable path of communication with your child as he matures.

You will draw closer to your child by talking to him than even playing with him actively. At least the child will draw closer to you. That one-on-one time will help children know how to interact with adults, help them communicate more effectively, and most important, show them how much you care.

How do you communicate to your children who can barely talk?