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 I cursed myself by writing about all the great things we can do during our child’s nap time. Before the last keystroke my boys must have been upstairs plotting. The following day they discovered they could get out of their cribs at will. In reality I’d watched the potential nap-buster grow over the previous month. The twins started climbing into their own cribs for nap and bedtime, quickly mastering an aerial somersault dismount. But the moment we put them horizontal tucked with a blanket and stuffed monkey they knew it was time to sleep. Until I wrote about it. The next day I heard them talking to one another during nap time and went to check it out.
When I opened the door Ry was sitting up in his crib. “Time to sleep, Ry.” My eyes adjusted to the dark. Wait a second. That’s not Ry! They had switched cribs. I looked over to the second crib, now packed with every stuffed animal they owned. I scooped through it. No second boy. I opened the blinds, effectively ending nap time. Still no boy. I panicked a bit. I spun around the room. “Alex, where’s your brother?” He rubbed his eyes and pointed to the closet. Ryder looked out and laughed. Nice.
Since that time napping has gone downhill fast. We decided to end the climbing game by taking down the crib walls, converting them into “big-boy” beds. That escalated the playtime for them. I could hear them upstairs developing their simple but effective plan.
“You up?”
“No, you up.”
“Me Up?”
“Yes. You up.”
I tried the “no eye contact, place them back in bed technique” but failed. By the time they fell asleep it was time for dinner, and I was just frustrated. I thought like other three year-olds maybe they were just done with naps. I let them stay up for a couple afternoons, but it was two really cranky, unhappy boys I had to deal with for the rest of the day. Finally, the weekend came and my wife was going to feel my pain. I was unapologetically looking forward to the break.
I always tell my wife Kathy that if I just listened to her advice life would run so much smoother. I left the house while she put the boys down. I didn’t want to bear witness to the screams and yelling, the tears and the foot stomping. Or the reaction of our boys either. (Insert rim shot here.) When I came back an hour later I gave her my best pinched lip empathy. “How many times have they been up?” By my calculations it should have been six. “None.” She said. Ouch. Had they turned on me? Do mothers have the parenting edge on this one?
Kathy remembered another parenting tip that I didn’t. She tucked them in, turned out the lights, and shut the door. However, instead of going up and down the stairs and spending the next two hours replacing them in their beds, she stayed in the room with them. She sat down and kept her back turned so they wouldn’t be able to get her attention. It worked Saturday. It worked Sunday. When Monday came I asked her again how it worked. “You just sit there and don’t say anything. Like you’re meditating.”
My theory about listening to my wife’s advice proved true again. Ten minutes and they were asleep. I snuck out of the room and was able to get back to all those projects I wrote about. Okay, I actually relaxed on the couch first. Sometimes a little rest is good for all of us.
 This past weekend was a project weekend. The red-eared slider I rescued when he was the size of a quarter has since outgrown his thirty-gallon tank. Without the room to put a bigger tank inside, I went the other route. Build a tank outside. Now, I could have simply bought a pond setup complete with faux rocks and a cascading waterfall but that isn’t much of a project, is it? No, I decided to do it all myself.
I went to a feed store and found an oval 100 gallon stock tank. Pretty straight-forward. Fill it up with water and drop the turtle in. But he also needed a place to bask in the sun. So I built a floating dock out of some wood flooring scraps we had in the garage. Simple. Then the real project began…I decided I would build the filter from scratch.
It’s a dangerous thing, the Internet. When researching filters I came across, “Do it Yourself Filter from a Five Gallon Bucket.” Do- it-Yourself and five gallon bucket in the same search result?! The filtering material was made from 99 cent store scrubbing pads. My inner McGuyver awakened. I dreamed about it all Friday night and was at the hardware store when they opened first thing Saturday morning. I had sketches and measurements stuffed into my pockets. My wife, frightened or understanding, kept the boys clear. Over the next two days I glued and caulked PVC together. I fired up my power tools. I failed, redesigned, and went back to the hardware store five different times. By Sunday afternoon, despite a few leaks that had to be re-patched, I considered my DIY filter design a success.
This morning I’m back to play-cooking with my sons. They are serving pancakes and juice. My point in all this is that despite the rewards of caring for my sons during the week, I still crave projects like these. I think they are a healthy extension of a stay at home dad‘s job. This weekend was about having a short term goal and seeing it through. I admit it was nice not yelling at my boys to put down the hacksaw or stop pouring sand into the tank. When my boys are older and calmer I’ll certainly share some of my destructive construction skills with them. But this was more about the sense of accomplishment–even with something as goofy as a DIY turtle tank. I feel rejuvenated. And the turtle seems happier too.
 When the economy tanks, we usually see a rise in violent crime along with it. But recent national statistics during this recession have shown that violent crime actually dropped. The FBI reported that both property crimes and violent crimes dropped by about five percent. This is the third straight year of declines. Across the country our crime rates now rival those of the 50′s and early sixties. Great news for us parents doing everything to keep our children safe. The unpredictability of violent crime has always created watchful anxiety. Unfortunately, you probably haven’t felt any of that anxiety dropping off.
A Gallup Poll found that 75% of Americans believe crime rates are getting worse. How come? Some believe that it is a psychological response to the economy. When we feel our security slipping away from tightening our belt or losing our job, we associate these losses with crime. Another thought is immigration and the quickly changing demographic of America. During these diversity shifts in communities, groups feel lowered trust in one another creating a similar feeling of insecurity.
Regarding children however, I still feel that media plays the biggest role. If mothers have soap operas in the afternoon, stay at home dads have cable news. The ever vigilant parent is the perfect addict for sensationalized stories of abduction and worse. In 1980 Turner Broadcasting launched CNN introducing America to a new news format. A 24-hours-a-day endlessly looping news format. Not far behind, cable television multiplied our channel count from five to hundreds. Now, with the searchable internet we have a platform for accelerating information around the globe. We no longer have to wait for delivery of news through television and print media—we can hunt for it. An avenue to know practically anything we wanted at any time, ad nauseum. As fathers, our hunter gatherer nature was aroused. We collect news information to keep ourselves and their children safer; a parent’s ultimate responsibility. But what do we ultimately find?
A twenty second internet search presents these results:
- A non-family member abduction occurs every nine minutes in the united states.
- There are 4 million pet dog attacks in the US, mostly on children.
- As many as one in twenty adults has active pedophile thoughts or tendencies. (Global Children’s Fund)
- About 1000 children die from drowning.
- Every year approximately 250,000 children are brought to the emergency room due to a bicycle injury.
Locally, you talk to other parents. Heather Quall, mother of two and organizer of a Ventura, California Mom’s group addresses the concerns she’s heard. “I hear about mountain lion sightings at the school down the road…I have heard of men trying to walk off with children at Arroyo Verde into the hills.” We know where every sex offender and violent felon lives in our neighborhood.
Then the newspaper arrives and headlines reinforce the threats. “Oxnard Man Shot to Death”, “Bird Tests Positive for West Nile Virus”, “Mountain Lion Sighted on Ventura Rooftop”. Television carries us further from home.
“A Chino Hills Park is closed after a coyote attack on a two year old…”
“Police are searching for a 14 year old girl that went missing from her Bel Air home early Tuesday…” With information like this appearing by the strike of a keyboard or the push of a remote control, it is understandable why parents are fearful. There are a world of threats leaned up against our front door.
 Grandma just sent two of these cool recordable books for our boy’s 3rd birthday. Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and All the Ways I Love You. They feature your voice reading a story to your child or grandchild when you can’t be there in person. Both are very Hallmark in content, more mushy than adventurous. I’m not sure if their other titles have more bite. Still, our boys loved hearing Grandma Sandy, who lives a thousand miles away, reading them a book. It has simple two-button recording action, one to start, the other to stop, with as much time as you want to improvise. Each page is a separate recording that can be re-recorded if needed. Ideas from Hallmark include recording yourself reading a bedtime story when you’re away on business, out for the evening or any time you can’t be there in person. Also a great idea for a military spouse to record before going overseas. We planned to show them only one at a time, but Grandma Sandy ended up reading both books the first night. Overall, I believe the boys would give these recordable storybooks two thumb sucks up.
The Department of Health & Human Services offers a list of 50 great ways to stay active with your children. These activities are easy, no-cost or low-cost ways to spend meaningful time with your family.
Here are just a few of their suggestions:
- Read together – Read a book, newspaper, magazine, the comics, anything will do as long as you are with your children.
- Call your father – Share the day across generations.
- Play ball – Or Frisbee, or soccer. Invite other dads and their kids to make it a team sport.
- Go to the hardware store – Share this classic experience with the next generation.
- Mow the lawn – Working together makes the job fun and your children learn responsibility and gain useful skills.
- Watch the game – Cheer your favorite team and chat about the plays, but mute the commercials and use those minutes to talk about what’s going on in your lives.
- Make breakfast – Kids of all ages can help. Young kids can mix pancake batter, older kids can scramble the eggs.
- Volunteer in your community – Your child will gain a better understanding of the importance of helping others.
- Visit the library – Get library cards for each member of your family. Share the joy of reading without the financial commitment of buying books. Help your children pick out books you can read together.
- Ride a bike – Grab your helmets, map out a route, and take in the fresh air.
For the full list of activities take a look at the HHS list of “50 Ways to Spend Father’s Day“
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