Adventures Of Fatherhood

Adventures Of Fatherhood
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No matter the circumstances, my kids love freezing water.
It’s a little disturbing I admit, but this affinity is on display each night in the bathtub.

It routinely plays out that neither boy wants any part of the cleaning process of bath time, and I assume this is a common situation with all kids. There’s not much fun with that whole ordeal and I get that.

That’s why it’s a sprint to help them get clean before one of them (usually Carson) pulls the plug and the warm water runs out. That’s when they both get a little giddy in anticipation of the cold water onslaught.

“Now?,” asks Beckett repeatedly throughout the bath process with his hand ready to turn off the hot water knob and crank up the cold. Finally, after all the “work” part of the bath is complete, I say go for it and stand back and watch as the crazy kids dump cold water on each other.

At first, and this is going back a year or so, Carson was not much for having frigid water dumped on him. Of course, I didn’t blame him. So when it came time for this part of the bath process I would just hold him while Beckett went at it.

As he got older, Carson decided he didn’t want to miss out on it, although I still don’t think he truly enjoyed it. It seemed to me he was faking it for his brother’s sake.

Now, he truly does like it and almost as much as Beckett, who seems to have built up a resistance to cold water as he just lets it run all over him and particularly likes dumping buckets of it straight over his head.

I think they are insane, but it does fill bath time with lots of laughter and that’s never a bad thing.

———————————————-It’s amazing to me how humbling parenting can be at times.

There are days when I think to myself I’m pretty decent at this parenting thing, but then others when I feel like I am wandering aimlessly without a clue through this adventure.

For me, it all basically comes down to how my kids are listening.

It’s one thing to not be heard, but there’s nothing more disturbing than simply being ignored by your kids, and this happens more often than I would like to admit.

Perhaps it’s our kids’ ages, 4 and 2 ½, but it’s certainly something I look forward to improving as time goes on.

With Carson, the terrible 2’s are in full effect, and he’s a wild man who is difficult to keep in check at times. Some of his favorite antics include knocking his plate of food off the table before taking one bite; picking up the remote control to the television, holding it over his head and throwing it to the floor; moving furniture around to give him a better chance at scaling that fireplace he has had his eye on since he was born; laying a good slap for no reason on his mother or father or brother; and spiking his sippie cup on the floor once he has emptied its content in his mouth.

All of these are followed by a laugh that is anything but humorous at the moment but later found to be kind of silly funny on some level.

I take heart in knowing all of the devilish acts will at some point in time be viewed with sincere fondness. “This too shall pass” often runs through my head during the moments of heightened frustration.

However, that’s making a huge assumption — that he will outgrow this disturbing phase of destruction. That just seems so unlikely during the moments when I am down on my hands and knees searching frantically for the missing battery after the kids have crashed for the night so I can turn off the annoying theme songs from Nick Jr.

It also seems impossible to conclude it will not always be this way when I am down again on all fours cleaning up the eggs he tossed aside at 6:45 in the morning and get hit squarely in the head with a chair he purposely pushed over on me.

Again there’s comes that laugh that at the moment is anything but funny. Even when I try to show him the toughest face I can muster to prove I mean business, he laughs.

Matters are only made worse when I walk away absolutely defeated, only to hear Beckett chime in with praise, saying, “great job Carson, you’re so cute buddy.”

I turned to give Beckett the same look I gave Carson moments early. At least, he runs away afraid.—————————————-
The Angry Birds game is a big deal around my house for the oldest child of the family.

It all started with the game on my wife’s iPhone and then led to a mistake — downloading the app on what was once supposed to be our iPad.

We now share it with Beckett or maybe it should be he now shares it with us because his addictive personality has been on full display for several months now.

It’s not just the game, however. This fascination next spread to stuffed animals. The current count is up to six, varying in size and, of course, color, and I’m afraid more trips to the local Walmart is going to drive the count even further up.

It’s more than just stuffed animals now, as it has now led to “Angry Birds” fruit gummies and Ritz crackers appearing in the house.

All in all, I have no idea how much money we have invested in this hot kid game and I have no interest actually in being told.

About The Author: Steven Green

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The writer has been with The Dispatch in various capacities since 1995, including serving as editor and publisher since 2004. His previous titles were managing editor, staff writer, sports editor, sales account manager and copy editor. Growing up in Salisbury before moving to Berlin, Green graduated from Worcester Preparatory School in 1993 and graduated from Loyola University Baltimore in 1997 with degrees in Communications (journalism concentration) and Political Science.