Does this make me a hero?

I was leaving the park with my daughter yesterday when I noticed something peculiar. A little boy was wandering out of the open gate to the parking lot.  All by himself.

For a split second I wondered if I should do anything about this, and then I spent the next split second pondering how I even could have considered not doing anything while I yelled out “Hey! Who lost their little boy!”

Some other concerned parents (not of the boy, either) instantly followed me out as we watched the little boy open the door and climb into the driver’s seat of a nearby parked car.  We got to the boy and questioned him.  He was alone in the car, with no parents to be found.

Then, out of the blue, the child’s mother emerged from the labyrinthine structure of slides and ladders, another child in arm. And in her other hand?

Why a cell phone, of course. What else?

She played it off as if she was leaving anyway, as though she had sent her child ahead to get in the car and wait for her and her other son. I don’t know, this is Florida. Maybe she wanted him to fire up the air conditioning, get the engine warmed up and get the radio going while she finished up some important business on the phone.

Or how about the truth, which really isn’t very hard to ascertain: she was too busy talking about nonsense on the phone when she should have been keeping at least one eye on her child. I would also expect this type of parent to lay the blame on whoever left the gate open.

See, I’ve become kind of an expert on this type of parent since the day I started taking my daughter to the park a while back. More so, I’ve become an expert on their children. They are the ones who follow my daughter too closely down the slide, push her out of the way without a word, and expect me to push them on the swings (Nope, not my job. Yours.)

Whenever she is treated disrespectfully like this, my ears perk up and I optimistically listen for some disciplinary remark from a nearby parent. After hearing nothing, I’ll look around and 4 out of 5 times see the same thing: parent; bench; cell phone. I won’t reprimand their child, but I will certainly do everything in my power to see to it that they don’t hurt my child (and obviously be sure that the misbehaving child doesn’t get hurt, either.)

This is just me, though. Obviously I couldn’t do anything about any child if I was off under the pavilion chatting it up on the phone.

Which brings us back to the perpetrator in question. What if no one saw her boy leave the park. From here on the “what ifs” only multiply and become more and more scary.  What if he wandered into the street? What if he climbed into some else’s car? What if the wrong person was in that car? Every parent should shudder at this point.

Does all this make me a hero? Most definitely not. I’m just a parent. Besides, this time everyone was safe. I know that the parent in question will be back on the phone just the same the next time. Some people never learn.

For those of us who can, though, please just remember one thing: if you can’t watch your children and talk on the cell phone, please, just hang up your cell phone. Take care of what is really important.

New Baby!

…and then, all of the sudden, things became much more interesting…

Yep, on 6-7-2008, I became Dad to the second power, Dad squared, etc. with the birth of my 2nd daughter, Audrey Grace.

Same poopy diapers, same night feedings, same crying, same fantastic fresh new Dad feeling.  But everything isn’t as close to being the same as one might believe…

Upon closer inspection of the behaviors of the new kid, one begins to realize very quickly that this is a brand new individual, with her very own ways of doing things.  Just trying to keep the same diapering routine that I had with Zoe has already caused me to be pooped on way more times then I’d like to admit (or remember.)  This one eats differently, cries differently, definitely looks different and most definitely is going to require her own ways of being raised.

This is, of course, where the excitement lies.  These are two individuals, and the amazing fun will be in getting to see how their personalities branch out into two completelty different, unique and amazing human beings.

Already, I am trying not to fall into the trap of comparing and contrasting the two kids and their traits, and hopefully my wife and I can raise two whole, complete, independent (etc., the list goes on and on) human beings.

Dad.

V2.0.

Don’t turn your back!

You can safety proof all you want, but your child is guaranteed to surprise you with something you didn’t think of.

Zoe and I returned from the grocery store the other day and proceeded to put the food away. She just loves to help pull things out of the bags and take them over to the refrigerator. Of course she does this under complete supervision to prevent unnecessary food spills (as if there are necessary ones.) Plus the bags can be dangerous as well.

Somewhere along the way she found an avocado, which she loves, so I let her hold it. Once we were done, my wife needed a hand with a project she was working on, so I helped her out.

It took about 5 minutes to help out and when I turned around, we realized that Zoe had started eating the avocado. Like an apple. With the skin on.

From here we switched into panic mode, getting her to spit out the tough avocado skin that was in her mouth. She resisted, but we were able to get it out and avoid a choking incident. Of course after that she got to eat the part of the fruit that she was supposed to eat.

Now I just need to write the publishers of What To Expect The First Year and get them to add “unpeeled avocados” to their list of safety proofing hazards.

Children’s Book Review: BooBoo, Other Gossie Books.

Perusing the shelves of the library while holding my daughter’s arm [if I don't hang on, she zings away and the chase is on] I noticed a group of white hardcover picture books that seemed to stand out on the vast shelves. This one was titled BooBoo and featured a little duck-like creature on the cover. Interesting enough, I thought.

The author’s name was Olivier Dunrea… no conclusions to draw from that, but it had my 17-month-old daughter’s attention. That was good enough for me, so we sat down on one of the undersized library chairs and I opened the book.

It turns out that BooBoo is a gosling (a baby goose — not a typical children’s animal character.) Not only that, but she is a little blue gosling who likes to eat. In the story, BooBoo wanders from food bowl to food bowl eating whatever she can. Eventually she eats a little bubble that happens to be floating by. Burps ensue (as do good times with your little early reader.)

The story is beautifully simple, and the author has done a terrific job of paring the words down to only those that are essential. The art is also wonderfully rendered in ink and watercolor, and utilizes the same minimalism as the writing. There are always at least a couple fun things to point out on any page.

The best part about it is that it tells a great story using so little. Our child is getting to a point where the board books are still okay, but we want to read her more story-oriented books. This is just what we were looking for.

Naturally we also borrowed the rest of the books in the series from the library. Some of the other titles include Gossie, Ollie, Ollie the Stomper and Peedie. All of them are similar with little goslings and their peculiar habits, yet each is unique and fun in its own way (Gossie loves her little red boots, Ollie won’t come out of his egg, and so on.)

I enjoy reading them to our daughter mainly because she enjoys reading them. And she is obviously the critic that matters.

We Are the Crumb-o-saurs

Zoe loves a song called “We Are the Dinosaurs” by children’s musician Laurie Berkner. It’s a simple brilliant tune about dinosaurs stomping around, eating food and taking naps.

I say brilliant because it makes Zoe march around the room and pretend to eat food, sleep, and so on. It’s so cool to see a 17-month-old use her imagination.

Today I was surprised. During the song she pretended to offer me food rather than pretend to eat it herself. Naturally, I let her put her hand to my mouth so I could pretend to eat what she was eating.

The catch was that she wasn’t exactly pretending… whenever she finds something on the floor (a crumb or piece of lint, for example) she gives it to me. This time, since my guard was down and I thought she was pretending to put something in my mouth, I unintentionally let her put whatever it was right on my tongue.

Blech!

Next time, I’ll be more careful. Just another small example of my kid teaching me an important lesson, I suppose.

Puppet show!

A couple of weeks ago I took Zoe to see a fun little puppet show called “The Flying Tortoise” at a local library.

Initially I had reservations since she’s still young and wasn’t going to go. Eventually I agreed with Cheryl and said why the heck not. Besides, any excuse to go to the library is a good one.

I was surprised that Zoe enjoyed the show. The puppeteers were all dressed in blue, including blue hoods. These matched a blue background that they could blend into, so you could focus more on the puppets. I was surprised mostly because she wasn’t scared of this setup, which is like nothing she had ever seen before (and very little that I have.)

I won’t go into too much detail about the story, except that it was an African folk tale that explained why the tortoise’s shell looks like it does (with a few morals tossed in on the way.) There was some audience participation also: the audience was encouraged to make some bird noises whenever the puppeteers made a certain sound (this was what scared Zoe the most.)

My biggest criticism with the play was the volume of the speakers, which I thought was way too loud for a children’s show. You see this a lot at family events and I wish it was something that the people in charge paid more attention to.

At any rate, it just goes to show that you should always take advantage of opportunities to take your kid out to see new things whenever you can. Especially when they’re free!

More on animated stuffed toys.

The previous blog reminded me of a recent video I’ve seen of the upcoming more-realistic-than-ever Tickle Me Elmo XXLIV. [Correction: more-terrifying-than-ever]

It all started with that darn “Teddy Ruxpin” doll.

It just seems to me that the more animated these things are, the less a child needs to use their imagination.  I think I’d much rather see my kids playing with stuffed toys having a tea party than some little robot instructing them to not think for themselves.

I love you, you’re scared of me.

 

A while ago when Zoe was still an infant, we got a gift in the mail: An stuffed interactive electric Barney. That’s right: none other than that wonderful purple and green dinosaur, equally loved and hated by parents and children everywhere (perhaps a little more hated. A simple YouTube search should verify this.)

[A bit of foreshadowing: The toy was manufactured by Microsoft. Cue foreboding, dark music.]

While my wife and I aren’t exactly members of the Barney Fan Club, we’re also not ones to look the proverbial gift dino in the mouth, either. We’re still open minded… why not give it a try… we’re new at this… what do we know? Besides, when we fired it up, Zoe seemed mildly amused enough by its robotic twitching, silly games, and even sillier songs (recently at a library play group, the teacher sung Barney’s “I love you” song, which admittedly made me cringe a little bit. Okay, a lot.)

Eventually, the toy seemed to freak Zoe out a little more than we liked. We put it back in the box and buried the dinosaur behind the futon to be excavated at a later date. She was well below the recommended age for the toy anyway.

Recently, feeling rather adventurous, we dug up the doll and reintroduced it. This time, though, Zoe’s reaction was not so lukewarm. She was frightened by it… terrified.

She’s done well with most things, showing no fear of the dark, the drain or Daddy’s singing. She does exhibit quite a bit of stranger anxiety, but that’s more understandable – most people scare the hell out of me. But this was the first time she’d been really afraid of something besides people, and I admittedly had no idea how to handle the situation besides shoving the little purple abomination back into his box and behind the futon.

After a couple of weeks, Zoe decided to pull the box out to get to another toy that was behind it. I surmised that since she’d done this, she must have gotten over her fear. I asked her, “Zoe, do you want to play with Barney?” Her reaction: bottom lip out, insta-tears, and immediate distress. Yikes.

My next mistake (hey, I’m still a rookie parent): ignoring common sense and research (and more common sense) and taking it upon myself to set up a play date with Zoe and Barney. “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” right? After all, she hadn’t seen him out of the box in a while.

Once she saw how harmless and stuffed he was, her fear would immediately be replaced by love for her prehistoric purple pal. I’d be on eBay the next day bidding up Barney DVD collections and posters for her room with positive catchphrases like “School is cool” and “I love you, you love peas.” We’d be singing boisterous songs about friends or birds or whatever the heck it is that Barney sings about. Fluffy, happy things.

What transpired next was 14 minutes that seemed like a 3 hours. We don’t need to go over all the gory details. There were tears. A lot of hugging. There were cryboogers… loads of cryboogers. [This is where the aforementioned dark, foreboding music could be heard intensely along with Bill Gates’ maniacal laughter.] In the end, Barney was back in the box, and the opposite of progress had been achieved.

After discussing the situation with my wife and doing the research I should’ve done in the first place, Barney has been buried much deeper and even farther away. He may not even be recovered this time for another 4 million years by a more advanced race who will either see him as a primitive tool, or charge him up and get the crap scared out of them.

I’m betting on the latter. In the meantime, in this house at least, Barney will now be referred to as “That Purple Thing That Shall Not Be Named.” Until we try again (in 4 million years.)

Children’s Book Review: Punk Farm & Punk Farm On Tour

Our family loves rock n’ roll. Actually that would be Loves. Capital “L.”

Before our first child was born, we saw “Punk Farm” by Jarrett J. Krososczka on the shelf of the bookstore and knew it would be a hit in our family. Obviously, then, we were most excited to find out there was a second book in the series, “Punk Farm On Tour.”

The first book covers a day in the life of several “ordinary” farm animals that become rock band “Punk Farm” when Farmer Joe goes to bed. Through clever writing and most excellent artwork (air guitar, please) Krososczka writes a cool, original and fun story.

When we quickly get to the concert, the band plays a killer version of “Old MacDonald Had A Farm.” Every band member has a verse: Cow the drummer goes boom, crash; chicken’s keyboards go wild; pig’s guitar screeches a solo. Each page is not only fun to read, but fun to improvise, and in a way that can be tailor-read to suit your own child’s enjoyment.

“Punk Farm On Tour” is kind of like when a rock band produces a second album that’s way better than their debut (Nirvana, Nevermind; Wilco, Being There; Led Zeppelin, II; etc.)

This one follows the adventures of Punk Farm as they tour the U.S. The song this time is a raucous version of “The Wheels On The Bus.” The bus is replaced with their tour van and its rockin’ sound effects. It also develops the characters a little further, increasing its improvisational value: goat as quasi-hippie, pig as rock-egomaniac and so on.

One more cool addition to the books is the accompanying website, complete with actual versions of the songs.

These books are great because of their repeat readability and the rare ability of the author to hit his target audience perfectly in tune (with lots of feedback, of course.)

Book Review: The Best 2,000 Games and Activities

Sometimes, despite knowing there are plenty of activities you can do with your kid, you still sometimes find yourself sitting across the room from them, wondering “what the heck do we do next?”

My wife brought home this book a while ago, and it’s served as a handy answer to that question ever since:

“The 2000 Best Games & Activities” by Susan Kettman (Sourcebooks Inc., 2005) not only has lots of age-specific ideas, but the activities are also written with a budget in mind.

Wow! You mean you don’t have to spend your kid’s entire college fund on “Baby Einstein” DVDs and two hundred dollar musical instruments for them to learn and have fun at the same time? We already have too many toys to count – but it’s still nice to find activities that require little more than imagination.

The book has activities that range from baby through age 8. The age groups it is divided into are baby, toddler, preschool (ages three and four), and kindergarten through grade three. So far (with a 17-month old) we’ve done lots of the baby and some of the toddler activities.

Overall, the book is divided into seven different skill sections. These include: communication, concentration, curiosity, decision making, kindness, physical ability and playfulness. Besides age and skill, there is no particular order in which to read the book. You simply open up to a skill section you wish to work on, find the appropriate age, check to see if you have the materials for a particular activity, read a paragraph or so, and then play.

Activities that my child liked the instant we did them were spreading pillows on the floor and jumping on them, using paper towel tubes as megaphones, and being pulled around by a towel on the floor. These are some of the more simple examples from the book, but fun, easy-to-find, and neatly compiled in one place.

Like I said, the book was written with a budget in mind, and there are very few activities that will need materials that the average household doesn’t have on hand. One might require some straws, pen and paper, a shoebox, or masking tape, for example.

Some parents might be able to come up with lots of activities on their own, and we still play lots of fun games. I was happy with the book the first time I saw it, though, simply because of the amount of activities that it contains. Also, while flipping through and figuring out what to do, it also can encourage new ideas for games by the parents themselves. I’ve done a few activities that have reminded me of things I did when I was a kid, and those are some of the activities we are most eager to share with ours.