Alistair clearly wanted Noble to play with him.  The continuous requests for Noble to listen and to follow his instructions made it quite clear this was the case.  Noble had a different agenda, though, and wouldn’t let up with “I don’t want to play with you!” Alistair had enough, and responded, “Shush it!  Shush your face!”

You see, we don’t say “Shut up” in our house.  It’s not as polite or tame as “Shush your face!” We do a fantastic job in our house at making sure our children are on track with using proper, age appropriate phrases.  Just listening to Alistair go off on Noble with his choice phrase got me to thinking how ridiculous our language is, and how we take pretty odd measures to try and clean it up.

Noble (7) called something a “damn thing” the other day.  And I had to tell him that he can say darn, instead.  And it means the same damn thing!  But, for some reason, darn is more tame than damn. Same with hell and heck.  It’s still the same inferno of pain and suffering.  But “heck” takes the edge off, apparently.

That brings me to Jesus Christ.  To many, he is the son of god.  And to others, he’s the invisible two year old being scolded when we’ve done something wrong, “Jesus Christ, not my good hammer!”  Or we blame him when we stub our toe, “Jesus Christ that hurts!” Noble said it once in an exasperated tone when he became increasingly frustrated with some yarn work he was doing.  ”Jesus!” At least he left off the Christ part.  And I found myself scolding him and giving him the proper alternative.  ”You cannot say that!  You can say ‘Jeez’.” It’s better, but not really, because this is clearly Jesus’s nickname.  I imagine that his disciples used it back in the day. “Yo Jeez!  What we gonna pray about today up in this holy house?!” I doubt he minds a great deal either way. I’m sure he’s rolling his eyes over a great many other atrocities.  But still, not cool to hear from a seven year old.

Shall I move on to shit? Don’t you dare let them say that!  It’s awful!  And there’s no excuse, because we’ve given them so many wonderful options: crap, poop, poo poo, poopy, pooperoni, two-ski, diarrhea, deuce and butt booger just to name a few.  This word offers a great opportunity for exploration i.e. ding-biscuit, steamer, crapcake, crapjack,  brown banana, and Shrek. Of all the words, shit really shouldn’t be used on the grounds that our children should be more creative.

The big one is the F word. That is the Voldemort of the house: that which shall not be spoken.  And they have no idea that’s the rule because they’ve been sheltered from it with great care. This word has never been uttered in our house…when the kids are home…or before 9pm.  This is a tricky word because the alternatives will be on a case by case basis.  It takes many difficult to manage forms: an adjective (That F-in nightmare is back, or F-in customer service representative), a noun (He’s a F-er…usually made into a compound word like F-face or Dumb-F), or verb…you know, to “do it.” Handling the F-word scares me.

I wouldn’t know where to begin if I heard Noble say it.  If he did, just off the top of my head, I suppose I would say something like, “What did you just…NO! Not good! That word opens up a portal for all manner of monsters to come through your closet and destroy us! What have you done?! Quick, get the Febreze, we need to spray the room and clean it of the evil that you have unleashed!  Hurry! There’s not much time if we want to live!” He might need therapy, but I bet he wouldn’t use the F word again.

Admittedly, I have a pretty foul mouth in certain circles.  And my wife and I share a pretty raunchy sense of humor at times.  We are both fans of Louis C.K. if that gives you an idea.  But the hypocrite in me finds the simplest things unacceptable with my kids.  For instance, I hate the word stupid.  It’s a stupid thing for a kid to say.  And I hate the word hate.  It’s the stupidest. I make my children come up with a different word when they use it.  It usually goes like this:

Noble: This toy is stupid.

Me: Noble, we don’t say that word, you can come up with something better.

Noble: I hate this toy?

Me: No.  Try again.

Noble: Jesus!  Can you just leave me alone?

Me: Noble!  We don’t talk like that!

Noble: Jeez!

Me: Better.

I think I’ve asked this question before, but I’ll put it out there again.  Are there words that you won’t allow your kids to use? Aside from the George Carlin top 7. Those are the givens.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

Noble was sitting by himself, tucked in the woods behind our campsite.  He was dejectedly fiddling with some tall grass.  Looking up at me, I could see that he was depressed.  It wasn’t a surprise, based on what recently went down.  He tried to get the whole sentence out without showing me his sadness, but his lip quivering on that final word said it all.  ”I just want to be left alone.”

Noble isn’t a depressed kid.  When he’s upset he tends to stomp, throw, and/or raise his voice. This new expression of his feelings stung me pretty hard. Ten minutes ago, though, we were in a different world. (more…)

When I was in middle school I wanted to be a superhero, with the powers of flight and hands that shoot electricity being my powers of choice. When I was in high school, all I wanted to do was be an actor. Now that I’m grown up, with a six-year-old in the house, my hopes and dreams no longer reach to the stars.  They center around a single item on my bucket list: yanking a tooth from my child’s face. (more…)

With my 6 year old, it’s pretty easy to get him to clean his room.  I just have to say, “Time to clean your room.” And then I have to listen to a bunch of whining, and pleads, and reasons why now is not a good time for him to clean his room.  Once I combat all of those, it’s pretty easy.  Then, I just have to listen to a few more minutes of “FINE!” or “but you said…” or more pleads to not clean his room.  Once I combat those with, “What did I just tell you to do?” it’s ridiculously easy.  I only have to go to his room and ask him why he didn’t really clean it, and why he put everything in the wrong spot or created a large tower of “stuff” in the closet.  Once I instruct him on where everything goes, it’s smooth sailing!

But I’ve got a 3 year old to deal with as well… (more…)

Is there anything so wonderful as taking your small child in to the doctor for shots?  Wait, let me rephrase that because maybe you didn’t pick up on my sarcasm.  Is there anything so horrifically sucky as taking your  child in to the doctor for shots?  What an ordeal!

It starts with the primary objections, when you mention it to them a couple days in advance.  ”I don’t want to get a shot!” Well of course you don’t.  I don’t.  They don’t seem to fully grasp the idea that by getting stabbed in the arm by a needle, they are hopefully going to miss the boat on a few days of vomiting, diarrhea and pain!

Then, when the day arrives, the treat demands surface. “I better get ice cream!” Or “I’m not getting a shot unless you buy me a toy!”  When kids are 2 or 3, I’m all about gifting the horror of getting a shot.  But Noble is 6 now.  I can go for a treat, but I just can’t be buying legos for every unpleasant thing in his life.  Some things in life require good ol fashioned, “Suck it up!”

And the tears, oh my gosh those tears after a shot are the worst!  As a parent, we are supposed to protect our children.  But there are these times when we have to literally watch them get stabbed by a stranger and do nothing about it.  The parental instinct is to smash the assailant in the head with a blunt object.  Denying that instinct while your kid looks at you like, “What are you letting them do to me?!” just isn’t easy.  But that’s the way it goes.

I managed to document Noble’s flu shot.  The experience was unlike any shot he has ever received.  He actually began the process with total optimism and acceptance… (more…)

I think in order to live forever, Jim Carrey has Horcruxed a piece of his soul into my son. #harrypotterreferenceday

I never said I was an awesome cook.  But it’s not for lack of trying.  I just seem to be stuck in the bachelor days when a meal is anything that makes me not hungry anymore.  So flavor, taste, or whatever you call the thing that the tongue senses is secondary, or thirdiary, or even fourtheria to simply making “something.”

This has been a point of contention between my wife and I for some time now.  She is a hard working mom and as the stay at home dad, making half decent meals is my responsibility.  Also, providing food and edible snacks for the children is something that I need to do.  And I have definitely taken a stab at it.  Most of you have seen the kale chip experiment and the aftermath of that.  You may have also seen the smoothie attempt.  And recently, on my Facebook page, I mentioned taco night where, after realizing I was missing tomatoes and onions for the taco seasoning, I chose to improvise by dumping in some salsa. And that didn’t work out too well.  I believe we ordered Indian that night.  (Incidentally, I’m AMAZING at ordering food!) (more…)

Alistair had his first cleaning yesterday.  Even though I was jumping up and down with joy that I got to have the pleasure of taking both young men to the dentist, without the accompaniment of my hard working wife, I somehow managed to also be nervous!  Imagine that!  Trying to keep two boys in a dentist’s chair at the same time was actually causing me stress! Bizarre, I know. (more…)

I love how creative and talented Noble can be.  That’s one of the greatest joys of being a parent: seeing their creative minds emerge.

And being a creative type myself, I understand how it doesn’t take much to stifle that creativity. Simple statements can shut down these magnificent artistic engines.  Examples of this might be, “I don’t get it”, or “you can’t draw that”, or “that’s not art, that’s hummus! And that’s not a canvas, that’s the interior of my car!”

Children just seem to be naturally free and expressive.  But how do you draw the line between creative expression and appropriateness?  Every now and again we will see pictures, from Noble, of people in airplanes exploding other airplanes and people peeing on things that explode. That’s just what children draw…I hope.  But it’s never been to the creative extent of his most recent piece.  I had recently purchased him a drawing pad, and instead of drawing on one piece, and then moving on to the next, he layed the pad sideways and created this extremely long canvas from two sheets.  But that’s not where it stops.  He then tapes the two pages together, and continued drawing onto another set of two pages!  And he taped it all together!  It’s brilliant!  But the picture ON that enormous taped together poster… well…

I don’t think I can quite do it the justice that Noble can, and so I managed to get his explanation on video. If you have a couple minutes, check out this video of Noble explaining his art.

This is absolutely hilarious. Even his descriptions have me rolling! So my question is this: where is the line? Obviously this isn’t the most tasteful subject matter. But who am I to tell him what he can and can’t draw? On the other hand…hmm, is there another hand? How do you handle this kind of art? I say it’s fantastic, because I laugh heartily when I look at it.  But drawing farts in school probably isn’t the most acceptable form of art.

Have you guys ever had to deal with bizarre, tasteless art? What was the picture/art? How did you handle it? I, personally, can’t say, “We don’t draw  pictures of people farting…” I just can’t.  I think the only thing I can do is frame it and hang it in the kitchen or something.  Because nothing would make me happier than explaining to a guest, in a serious art afficienado fashion, with my tight black pants and black turtle neck, and possible scarf…”Oh, and this one right here, this is a man who’s just, well he’s just letting out a whole thing of diarrhea…just for fun.”

Depending on your method of potty training, there are different signs that your child is ready to be potty trained.  For people who use the EC (Elimination Communication) method, those kiddos are ready as soon as they spring forth into the world.  For others, they simply wait until their kids are in high school and it’s considered faux pas to poop in your underwear.  We found ourselves in the middle.  And when I say middle, I mean more around age 2.  We definitely waited for specific readiness signs such as running off to a poopin spot, being able to follow our directions (as good as a two year old can), staying dry for longer periods of time, and  being able to pull down his pants (required skill for independent peeing, wouldn’t you think).  Pulling pants back up was not a prerequisite, as most two year olds who attempt this somehow end up pulling their underwear over their pants with both legs in one of the holes. (more…)