Memorable moments in parenting

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Quote: Originally Posted by fazstp We recently went away for my son's birthday down the coast here past Apollo Bay. On his birthday we gave him the choice between going to see the 12 Apostles (a natural rock formation along a stretch of coast) or going to see some rubber dinosaurs and going on a tree-top walk on this elevated walkway. He said he wanted to see the 12 a-fossils.

Speaking of fossils, last week I had to dig up the septic cover, and my kids asked if they could look for fossils in the hole. My daughter even had brushes for cleaning them. And the other day, we went on a short nature walk in the woods near our house. My daughter called out, "A skull! Maybe it's a fossil! Can I keep it?" Sure enough, there was an animal skull (but little else, maybe coyotes dragged off the rest). I told her fossils don't smell like that. She asked what kind of animal it was. I told her it might be a raccoon but we'll need to do some research later. We put it in a bucket behind our shed for now. My wife can tolerate that - until it's clean enough to handle, she wants nothing to do with it. My son wasn't interested in the skull. He was busy filling all of his pockets with rocks. His jeans were so heavy he had to hold them up on the walk home.

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My wife was brushing our daughter's hair this morning before school. My daughter said to my wife "I wish I had Farrah hair like you did when you were younger." Neither of them appreciated my laughter.

[fazstp]

Quote: Originally Posted by capitalj Speaking of fossils, last week I had to dig up the septic cover, and my kids asked if they could look for fossils in the hole. My daughter even had brushes for cleaning them.

LOL. I guess there could be a coprolitic curry?

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My wife drove my almost-five-year-old son to preschool yesterday, but after parking the car could not remove the key from the ignition. As she became increasingly flustered, he laughed harder and harder. Then, he unbuckled himself from his booster seat, climbed into the front of the car, reached for the key, turned it from accessory to lock, pulled it out and said, "Here you go, Mama." Mama was mortified.

[NovaScotian]

In spite of having been a Kindergarten teacher for 30 years, my wife believed that boys and girls were basically the same. When our daughter had twin boys, my wife pitched in big time (enjoying every microsecond) and often took the boys out for walks. Their preferred destinations were always the new construction sites in an expanding neighborhood, something none of our 5 grand daughters would even notice. At one site Nanny said: "Oh look boys, a tractor". One of the 30-month old twins corrected her immediately: "That’s a Kuboda, Nanny".

Get used to it capitalj; you can bet your son knows much more about your car than you can imagine. Boys make internal movies of that stuff.

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My son recently turned five. At first, he was resistant to his impending fifth birthday, insisting that he would remain four. But a few weeks ago, he became enthusiastic, informing everybody that he was almost five. He woke us up early on the morning of his the big day, eagerly announcing "Guess what? Next I'm turning six!"

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As I'm sure has happened with many other families, the book "Guess How Much I Love You" inspired a game of surpassing the last line, "I love you right up to the moon - and back". The other night, my seven year old daughter became the current champion when she called out "I love you to the TARDIS and back… to Gallifrey and back!"

[fazstp]

We were at my nephew's birthday party and my four year old son was eating a party pie while some of the adults were discussing the meat content. When someone said they contain meat and bits my son stopped eating to clarify that the bits in the pie weren't the bits we tell him euphemistically to keep private.

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We have helped raise our nephew since birth, pretty much full time for the first half of his life (he used to have his own bedroom in our house). He is now seventeen, and we are less involved, otherwise I might worry that the following was a reflection on our parenting skills.

My nephew is spending a few days with us. For some reason, he wanted to learn some Knock Knock jokes. I was busy, and he was sitting in front of his laptop, so I said, "Google is your friend." A minute later he looked confused and said, "I typed "is your friend" but...." Then he turned his computer to show me the results. I then had to explain the top hits to him because he hadn't bothered to click on anything.

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My son just walked up to me and said, "My energy only goes up to my belly. It needs to go up to my brain." Translation: "I'm hungry."

My 3 years old daughter got lost on a grocery store and when the security guard asked her, she told the guard that "my mother got lost".

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Quote: Originally Posted by TheLindenMethod My 3 years old daughter got lost on a grocery store and when the security guard asked her, she told the guard that "my mother got lost".

That can be funny after the fact, like when my then 2 year old daughter played hide and seek in a store, but it's terrifying at the time.

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We live in a quiet little neighborhood; a few dozen houses, ours is the only paved road. When my children ride their bikes, they have a few rules to follow: wear their helmets and pads, stay within my sight, get off their bikes and stand at the side of the road for all cars. Their friends' parents issued the same rules.

I was down the street from my house talking to a neighbor, when her husband turned onto our road. Although theirs is the first house on the street and he would never come near the children, we warned of the approaching car because we strictly enforce the safety rules. All but one of the children stopped and got off their bikes.

For some reason my daughter decided to ride to the perceived safety of our driveway, despite my repeated warnings to follow the rules. She was wide-eyed - apparently my shouts frightened her into being more determined to reach the driveway - and pedaling too quickly. She swerved... then I heard a loud crash. Worse was the silence that followed. As I ran, my daughter began screaming, which was hardly better than the silence. I raced into the driveway to find her on the ground, under her bike, next to my wife's old car (kept only for dump runs, etc).

She was crying too hard to speak, so I tossed her bike aside and quickly examined her for injuries. Luckily, there were just a few small bruises. Eventually she calmed down… then saw the dings and scratches in the car, "Oh, no! I'll be grounded for wrecking Mama's car!" and another round of tears. Mama did not ground her, but did make her promise to obey the safety rules.

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"Come and watch me get a goal!" my son said to my wife. "What game are you playing?" she asked. "Come and see."

He led her into the bathroom, lifted the lid and seat, took aim, and peed straight through the seat onto the underside of the lid, scoring a goal - and a penalty.

[renaultssoftware]

Aw gross!!

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We were listening to NPR, and heard that Super Mario Bros. is 25 years old - ancient history to my 8-year-old daughter. She asked if it was originally in black and white.

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So we had a bit of drama at the bus stop. My daughter doesn't actually take the bus to school because the bus company prohibits children carrying medication, and my daughter carries an Epi-Pen for her peanut allergy. We wait at the neighborhood bus stop and let the children play until the bus comes, then drive to school.

This morning, my daughter wanted to play tag. The boy next door went closer to the main road than we allow our children, closer than he is allowed, as a matter of fact. This is not unusual. He cheats. A lot. Over the past year or so, he has become increasingly sneaky, dishonest, and unkind, particularly toward my daughter. We aren't sure why, they have been friends since they were toddlers. My daughter didn't get angry, she just asked him to come back, but he ignored her. Her feelings were hurt. I quietly told her to go play with her other friends.

After the bus left, his mother, clearly annoyed, said to me "So he's not allowed in your yard unless I'm with him now?" Uh-oh. "That's not what I said." We are close friends with our neighbors, despite very different backgrounds. They are also very clannish, and loyal to a fault. Until recently, this had never strained our relationship.

A few days ago, the boy was in the back yard playing with our children. We have a play structure with swings, slide, and fort. I was packing the car for a weekend trip while my wife was chatting with the neighbors. We monitored the children, but did not keep a constant eye on them. Suddenly, my five-year-old son was screaming. I ran out back to find him at the bottom of the slide with a nasty rope burn around his neck. A jump rope was on the ground. My daughter was trying to soothe him. The neighbor boy was at the top of the slide, all wide-eyed innocence. My son was too hysterical too explain what happened. My daughter and her friend claimed ignorance.

Now, I know that the kids liked to tie a rope at the top of the slide and pretend to go mountain climbing. I told them that this is unsafe and not allowed, warning my daughter that there would be severe consequences if she didn't obey. Until that moment, she had. I pressed them about what happened, becoming exasperated by reiterations of "I don't know". Finally, my daughter said that her friend had tied the rope, but that's all she knew because her back was turned when her brother got hurt. I angrily told them that this situation was the very reason for the rule, and that I was furious at their dishonesty. The neighbor boy stormed off.

I told my wife what happened, and she comforted our son while I lectured our daughter. Our neighbor brought her son to apologize, but our son became hysterical again. "No, you hurt me, stay away!" My wife said "Between the pool and this, I'm very sad about your behavior." (A week earlier, he had push our son into a pool where the water was over his head, then lied to his mother about it - fortunately my wife happened to catch the whole thing on video.) His mother became upset and said that we can't blame him when others were involved. He started screaming that everybody blames him for everything and ran off crying.

I stepped in and said that even though he had been the one to tie the rope, I hadn't singled him out. I had in fact held everybody responsible because everybody is aware of the rules, and that what I had actually said was "You all know the rules, and this is exactly why we have that rule. He could have been killed. If you just tell me what happened, we can work it out, but when you lie, it pisses me off." Then I told her that I held my daughter more responsible because it's our yard. She knows the rules, and she should have taken her brother and gotten a grownup to help when a safety rule was being broken. That seemed to placate her, and soon after that, we left.

In the car, I talked to my daughter some more. She admitted that she said she didn't know anything because she had been afraid to get her friend in trouble, but that she had warned him that what he was doing was against the rules, to which he replied, "Your father isn't the boss of me." She told him that he was going to get in trouble if he got caught, but continued playing, although not on the slide. She didn't actually see what happened to her brother. Our son is young, and was terrified, so his version of the events is contradictory and unreliable. Their friend won't own up to anything, so we'll never know the whole story

This boy has repeatedly broken rules right in front of me, fully aware that I was watching, and then denied doing so. I know I can't trust him any more, but I can't single him out without seeming petty, so I made a new rule. Our children are not allowed to bring any friends into the back yard without an adult present. We said we'd talk to him and his mother in a few days, after everybody had calmed down.

Apparently our daughter told her friend, but got the rule muddled, He took offense, as did his mother. The boy has done a lot of things lately that have hurt our children, physically and emotionally. Frankly, he is turning into a bully. At first, his mother remained objective, and the situations were handled appropriately. But as the situations have increased in frequency and severity, she has begun to respond as if we are picking on her son, rather than her son picking on our children. We actually let many things slide, trying to teach our children to solve minor problems on their own. Which brings us back to this morning.

I told my neighbor that what I actually said was that no children were allowed in our back yard without a grown up. They all know the rules and all of them are breaking them, so I made a new rule for everybody. She calmed down but repeated for the umpteenth time that her son wasn't the only one involved. Although others were involved, he was the instigator and my son, not hers, was the victim. Such a comment would be counterproductive.

We'll see what tomorrow brings. Childhood is a messy business.

[NovaScotian]

The world is full of frustrating people who think their children and pets are perfect; don't want to hear and won't acknowledge any wrongdoing on their part. They don't seem to see that that just encourages a wrongdoing kid and that they'll pay big time for that later, but c'est la vie. When my kids were little, we just avoided such folks like the plague knowing it would only get worse. Years later, our leeriness about one playmate in particular panned out when he severely injured another kid (not one of ours) and then lied through his teeth about it.

[capitalj]

Yeah, my wife says he'll regret it in high school when girls like my daughter won't give him the time of day. It's hard for a child to understand that not everybody is nice. We can only encourage them to pursue healthier relationships and hope that they do. She has plenty of other friends and children's social circles are so fluid. I expect the issue will be resolved with a minimum of intervention on our part.

[NovaScotian]

We took a substantial ration of buzz when we declared that Billy was not an acceptable friend, that he couldn't come to our house, and that our son couldn't go to Billy's. That's awkward for a kid to deal with - they don't have the aplomb required - but it's for the best.