Heart Breaker

My Wife: “You’re so beautiful. All the girls will be after you.”

Troy: “Well, they won’t catch me. I’m too fast!”

The Mosquito in Disguise

Me: “Do you set that mosquito on that dinosaur egg?”

Troy: “It’s not a mosquito, it’s a Meganeura.”

Me: “No it’s not. It’s a mosquito!”

Troy: “Look, do you see the long pointy thing coming out of its face?”

Me: “No, where is it?”

Troy: “It’s not there, because it’s not a mosquito. It’s a Meganeura!”

Me [laughing]: “You cheeky little bugger.”

Psychological Nagging

Troy’s daycare teacher made an off-handed comment to my wife that apparently Troy doesn’t eat at the daycare. He picks at the food or refuses to eat altogether. We were under the impression that he ate fine at school and only struggled at home. We attributed it to peer pressure at school versus being distracted at home. But I guess all this time we were deceived.

I’m worried, because the only food he gets is at dinner and on weekends. And even then, he only really eats because we’re constantly telling him to “take a bite.” I’m starting to think it’s psychological, just like him attributing sleep to someone being in the bed next to him. He will only eat because we’re nagging him.

So, as hard as it may be, we’re going to try to just put the food in front of him and leave him to it. When dinner time is over, we’ll pick the food up. Eventually, he’ll be hungry enough to eat, but we need to break his connection to our nagging him.

Potty Training - Stage 2 - Complete

Since Troy is completely potty trained during the day, we’re trying to start heading toward potty training at night now too. He’s still hit or miss with whether he can make it all night without peeing in his pull-up. So, we started keeping him in his underwear during naps to get him used to sleeping without the “safety net” if you will. We also stopped taking pull-ups to the daycare, so he’s in underwear all day now.

He’s gotten better at going potty right before bed and immediately after he gets up. But we will have a tougher time weaning him off of drinking water right before he lays down.

Rocking the Zipline

Today, we went to yet another birthday party, this time for Sahas, a boy who used to be in Troy's class.  It seems like we're in party season, like we're going to one every single weekend!  This one was held at We Rock the Spectrum, which was another sub-par indoor playground in my opinion.  They had some cool play implements, like a trampoline, zipline, and tube-cloth blowing thing.  And then swings, slides, and various other toys were scattered throughout the place.  The worst part was that since Troy was no longer in the same class as Sahas, we didn't know anyone else there.  Sahas didn't even care about playing with Troy.  So, I ran around and entertained him until thankfully Misha showed up.  After that, things picked up and Misha and Troy had a blast together.

Happy Duck Day

Me: “Troy, I just see one duck on the pond today. It looks like all the other ducks left him alone.”

Troy: “That’s because they’re all off getting him some fish.”

Me: “Oh, is he the king?”

Troy: “No, he’s a baby.”

Me: “I see. Maybe it’s his birthday, and the fish are his gifts.”

Troy: “Yeah, probably.”

Me: “I wonder if ducks sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to each other.”

Troy: “Of course they do.”

Me: “And how would that go? Quack…quack, quack, quack…quack, quack. Quack…quack, quack, quack…quack, quack. Quack…quack, QUACK, quack…quack…quaaaaccckk. Quack…quack, quack, quack…quack, quack.”

Troy [snickering]: “Quack…that’s funny.”

Breaking Up is Hard to Do

I recently heard a quote in a movie that said, "Being the mother of a son is like having a boyfriend that is slowly breaking up with you," which I think is a slight adaptation of a quote from Mia Freedman, an Australian writer, who penned an essay titled “Your Son Growing Up Will Feel Like the Slowest Breakup You’ve Ever Known.” While this is about mother's, the quote hit me pretty hard as a father too. In essence, you're watching your son grow up and become more independent.  And with that independence comes them pulling away to go live their own life.  But the change is so subtle over the process of years that you don't notice until one day they're just gone. Or as Carolyn Moore put it, "our babies grow up when we’re not looking and entirely without our consent."

I feel this with Troy.  He's growing up so fast, and I love watching his personality develop and change. But I also loved the little boy he was yesterday too. I like how Mia Freedman puts it:

"…you don’t actually parent one person, you parent many, many different people who are all your child.

"There’s the newborn, the baby, the toddler, the pre-schooler, the primary aged kid, the pre-teen, the adolescent, the full-blown teen, the young adult and then the adult. They all answer to the same name. They all call you Mum. And you never ever notice the inflection point where one of those people turns into the next.

"You never get to properly say goodbye to all the little people who grow up because you don’t notice the growing, the changing. Except when Facebook sends you those bloody memory reminders that invariably make me cry because it’s like showing me the face of someone I can never see again. Not in that way. Not at that age."

I want to hold onto each of his stages forever, but I know I can't. I have to say goodbye to each one and let Troy grow. I have to let him spread his wings, test the movement, and then make the leap. Because if I don't, I'll never get to see him soar.

Pediatric Insomnia

Lately, Troy won’t sleep all the way through the night. He’ll wake up between 3:30 and 4:30 in the morning and come downstairs crying that nobody was there when he woke up. He won’t go back to sleep until either someone lays down in his bed with him or we move him into our bed. We know this isn’t the healthiest option, but when it’s the middle of the night, and you’re exhausted, you don’t always make the right choice.

I was reading that anxiety can be a cause of this. Fear of abandonment is one form. When someone is there when the child falls asleep and then isn’t there when they wake up in the night, they get scared and confused. But once this routine is established, it’s expected from the child in order to fall asleep, because he associates sleeping with someone being next to him. Besides waking up in the middle of the night, the child may also go through an elaborate bedtime ritual, delaying going to bed as long as possible, because it prolongs the amount of time he gets to spend with his parents.

We are guilty of this. One of us will lay down next to him when we put him to bed and stay until he falls asleep. But studies have shown that children need to learn to fall asleep on their own, because it affects how they’ll go back to sleep if they wake up. And if they do wake up, then you should walk them back to bed and then walk away again. You may have to endure a tantrum or tears, and it may take a few times, but in the end, the child will learn to self-soothe and go back to sleep. You can also “fill” a fluffy with love and tell him he can squeeze it if he feels alone.

An overactive imagination is another form. Children who have vivid imaginations will sometimes have a hard time separating fantasy from reality. Things they see in TV, movies, or video games will endure long after they’ve turned them off, and they’ll conjure images of monsters creeping around in the dark and get scared.

I suspect this is going on with Troy as well. We know he’s got an amazing imagination. He’s also obsessed with zombies, monsters, and witches; making up many stories and songs about them. So, it’s possible that he sees things in the night that bring his imagination to life. I’ve tried to tell him that these things aren’t real, that they’re just on TV, but I’m not sure that he believes me. One of the things they said can help with this is limiting screen time before bed. We could do better at this too, because normally he’s watching TV pretty late, because it’s the only way to get him to eat. But we also know that he prolongs eating to get as much time watching TV as possible.

Then again, some children are naturally night owls, which can make it hard to both fall asleep and stay there. This could be true of Troy. I know he’s definitely not a morning person, but I’m not quite convinced that he’s a night person either. I think he’s more of a middle of the day person like his mother.

So wish us luck as we dive into trying to tackle his insomnia problem. We’ve screwed him up, and now we need to fix him!

Forever!

Troy: “Dada, why does everyone tell me that I’m taking forever? I’m not taking forever.”

Me: “Because you ARE taking forever with everything we ask you to do; changing your clothes, eating your food, coming in the bathroom to take a bath, getting in the car and clipping yourself. You will eventually get it done, but not before making twelve stops along the way to do something else first; laying across the armrest of the couch, playing with a toy, picking up a rock, riding your bike across the house. It’s maddening! I mean the fact that I asked you to put on your clothes seven minutes ago, and we’re having this conversation instead is the perfect example of what I mean. PLEASE PUT ON YOUR CLOTHES!”

Troy: “Dada?”

Me: “Yes, Troy?”

Troy: “I saw a bug on the window.”

Me [in a Scottish accent]: “Heed! Pants! Now!”

Whispered Secrets

Troy: “Can I tell you a secret?”

Misha: “Okay.”

Troy: “Let me whisper it in your ear.”

Misha [turning her ear toward him]: …

Troy [whispering]: “I love you.”

Misha: “Now, I want to tell you a secret in your ear.”

Troy [turning his ear toward her]: “Okay.”

Misha [whispering]: “I think we’re having cupcakes.”

Gymtastic Birthday

Today, we attended Numair's birthday party, another little boy in Troy's class.  It was held at the Southlake Gymnastics Academy, which seems an odd place to have a party to me.  There were some trampolines for the kids to bounce on, a foam pit that they could jump into, and a little climbing mountain.  But that was it.  Compared to other party venue's we've attended, this one seemed pretty sparse.  On top of that, we were only given one hour to play, and they were rigid to the minute on that policy.  After the hour was up, we adjourned to a party room for pizza and cupcakes.  The theme was supposed to be superheroes, but I didn't realize that it was superheroes from the Marvel universe, and I mistakenly represented by wearing my Flash t-shirt (although I blame false advertising, because the invite had Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman who are all from the DC Universe like the Flash).  But it was a nice departure from the weekend routine for Troy, and he enjoyed seeing his friends and playing.

Pre-Easter

My wife was off visiting a friend this morning, so I decided to take Troy to the park for an Easter egg hunt.  His daycare class had celebrated Easter last week, and he had a basket full of plastic eggs.  So, I packed him up in the car, stopped to get some donuts, and headed off to the park.  It was a beautiful morning, and we sat in the car, munching on donuts and talking about random nonsense like boys are wont to do.  A slight breeze blew through the open windows, bringing with it the fresh smell of life and wildflowers.  It was nice to just hang with my boy.

After we finished up our sugary breakfast, we unpacked the eggs and headed into the park.  I told Troy to turn around while I hid the eggs (although I'm pretty sure he peeked).  I tucked some in the tall, lush grass.  Some were sitting on tree branches or in nooks in the bark.  Some were nestled between the tree roots.  And some were cleverly hidden under a leaf or stick on the ground.  With a little prompting, Troy meticulously found them all.  Then, he decided to hide them again for me.

Let's just say that his hiding skills were not quite as advanced as mine.  For the most part, he just dumped the contents of the basket out on the grass, casually tossed a few eggs here and there, and then proceeded to pull up giant clumps of grass and cover the eggs.  He was so confident that he had outsmarted me, that I pretended to stumble around cluelessly looking for the eggs.  Finally, growing tired of my stupidity, Troy put me out of my misery and showed me where to look.

He was pretty much done after that, and he wanted me to take him to a playground to play.  So, we packed up, coordinated to meet my wife, and went to see the chickens...the true makers of Easter eggs!