Straight Dope Dad | A Father's View on Parenting

Go Ahead, Blame Me.

I started this blog because there seemed to be plenty of places for bitter divorced dads, Christian dads, dads with autistic children, gay dads, one-armed dads, dads with irritable bowel, dads who screwed up their first family and then got a divorce and married a young fertile hottie to start a second family, and a heap load of generic parenting advice disguised as fatherhood tips. However, it felt like there was a gap in slice-of-life, straight up, no B.S. talk about what it’s really like to raise a kid from father’s point of view. And let’s face, dads just do and see things differently.

The Straight Dope Dad and Daughter featured in the least helpful and coherent of all ancient parenting tombs "The Book of Trial and Error"

Me, I’m a self employed father raising a 6 year daughter with my wonderful partner of 21 years. Yep, we waited 15 years to have a kid. Some days it still feels like we didn’t wait long enough.

My office sits right in the middle of the action in our small home. I’ve been changing diapers since day one. Same with feedings, bathing and doctors appointments. Every summer I’m doing the birthday circuit and every Saturday I take my daughter on an adventure. I like to start my day really early and, whenever possible, cut out late afternoon and hang out with her the rest of the day. I have a surf buddy with a kid the same age that also has a flexible schedule so we’re often hitting the swimming pool, park or mall together then taking the kids out to dinner before heading home.

Not only is this good for us it’s also good for our spouses. Nothing makes your partner happier than taking the kids out in the evening so she can decompress, read, watch a bit of TV, or just stare into space without interruption.

Needless to say you’ll never hear me say “oh, enjoy every minute of it because they grow up so fast”. You know who says that nonsense? Dad’s that come home from work, spend fifteen minutes with their kids then watch television till bedtime while mom feeds the kids, washes the dishes and puts the children to bed. Trust me, if you’re fully involved in all aspects of raising your child, it doesn’t go by fast. Some days it’s excruciatingly long and repetitious. Tedium incarnate. The upside is that when it’s good it’s amazing. But you gotta be there when it happens. You can’t just show up at your convenience and expect all the good parts to happen when you’re present. You gotta eat your veggies if you want dessert.

Now get off your duff and get going. Your kid’s waiting for you!

Thanks,

Straight Dope Dad

You can contact me directly at  The Straight Dope Dad

Straight Dope Dad | A Fathers View on Parenting
Copyright © 2007 Straight Dope Dad

File Under: Parenting Tips – What to Expect When Your Partner’s Expecting – Fatherhood Advice – Child Raising Tricks – A Dad’s Advice About Children – Stay at Home Dad – Self Employed Father – Raising Children With a Home Office – Raising Children in an Atheist Home – Non-Religious Parenting Advice – Non-Christian Parenting Advice – Vegetarian Children – Religion Free Parenting – Progressive Parenting – Atheist Parenting – Work at Home Dad – Engaged Fatherhood – Not Married But Raising Children – Unmarried Parenting – Parenting Without Marriage – Secular Parenthood – Parenting Blog – Fatherhood Blog

Summary: No matter how bizarre and unlikely, you should take your child seriously when they insist the “impossible” is possible.

Dojos are very friendly but have very poor eye sight so they use their whiskers to find food.

This story happens during our very recent and very long wet spring.

In you live in the bay area our spring was unusually wet. It seemed to rain at least once per week. Besides annoying it also destroyed about six weeks’ worth of strawberries at my favorite pick your self farm.

One weekend my buddy and his daughter we joining us for a trip over the hill. It was the usual “do something fun for the kids, get something to eat, then run errands at Fry’s and 99 Ranch Market” Saturday routine.

As usual, it was raining hard and my dojos were especially active. What’s a dojo? A dojo, also known as a weather loach, is a very cool eel like fish. They are exceptionally good natured and friendly. They’ll readily eat right out your hand. They also have the unusual ability to breathe air like a land animal. They don’t actually inhale and exhale. They take in breaths and then hold it in their intestines and slowly dissolve the oxygen. They get the name, weather loach, because of their erratic behavior with approaching storms.  It seems they are especially sensitive to barometric pressure. In their native Asia they are used to dealing with their homes drying out and then becoming flooded again. I suspect they evolved this weather sensitivity as biological marker to induce them to get ready for rain and possibly look for a new home.

For a supposed bottom feeder, dojos are very active and use the entire tank.

They are always active, and for a supposed bottom feeder, they spend more time at the top than any other fish I’ve owned. They are also expert jumpers. If there is an inch of open space at the top of the aquarium they will find it and eventually get out. Every dojo I’ve owned, since I was twelve years old, has escaped. Most of the time you find them on the floor hours later, dried up and covered in lint. However, just pick them up and throw them back in. They almost always recover and live long healthy lives.

So back to the beginning.

My buddy shows up and of course his daughter runs into our house and the two start playing. Even though we’ve told them we are leaving in two minutes, they still will squeeze in as much play time as possible.

After a few minutes, we break it up and pile into the car. We’re gone for five hours and it rains the whole time.

We arrive back at our house and the girls jump out and start playing in the water puddles. They’re having a blast when suddenly my buddy’s daughter yells out.

“Look, it’s a salamander!”

She’s points at a puddle right in front of our house. My daughter leans in close.

“That’s not a salamander, that’s a dojo!’

“No it’s salamander!”

“No, it’s a dojo, see the whiskers?”

“That can’t be a dojo.” I say.

“Yes it is. It’s a dojo!”

“That’s impossible.”

“No, I’m telling you it’s a dojo! Come look.”

So I go over to the puddle expecting to see a salamander.

“What the hell is that? Holy shit, that’s a dojo!”

It’s just swimming in the puddle with half its back sticking out. I scoop him up and go up the stairs, into the house an throw him back in the aquarium.

“That is unbelievable. Did you leave the house today?” I ask my partner.

“Nope. Been cleaning the house.”

“That means that this dojo had escaped in the morning, flip flopped through the house to the front door, and in the few minute while we were loading the car, managed to get outside, across the welcome mat, down the stairs and into the street where it found a puddle and decided to stay . Unfucking believable!”

I told you it was a dojo! But you wouldn’t believe me!”

“I’m sorry about that. Next time you insist that something is true, I’ll take you seriously even if it what you’re saying seems impossible.”

“Thanks.”

Still happy and healthy. Dojos are very social and should kept in groups.

File Under: Trusting Your Child When They Insist Something is True Even if it Seems Impossible

So my daughter and I have been playing Uno in the evenings. It’s a fun, easy game to wind down the day with, and with two people it goes rather brisk. Skip cards now skips the next hand directly back to yourself. Reverse does the same thing. To make it less painful we allow you to play a card every hand even if you given a draw four.

So my daughter wants to keep score. She gets a piece of paper and draws a line down the middle. One one side she writes her name and on the other side, mine.

We start playing and she’s on a roll. She wins the first five games easily. However on the sixth game I finally win one.

“Awwww,” says my daughter as she begrudgedly puts a single mark in my column.

“What? Are you serious? You win five in a row and your being fussy because you didn’t win the sixth game also? You know, I don’t think you’ll every be satisfied unless you won every game forever. It’s like you only remember the last game and nothing in the past matters.”

“What does satisfy mean?”

“Really? You don’t know what satisfied means?”

“No.”

“It means you are happy with how things are going. Now let’s play a few more.”

We go back and forth and I pick up two games in a row. However she’s still kicking my ass with 11 wins to my three.

The card to match is a yellow eight. I have no yellows but I do have a red eight so I play that one.

“A red reverse, a red skip, and a draw four. Uno!  And we’ll make it green”

I draw four cards and it’s a loaded hand.

“A green skip, a blue skip, and a draw four. I know your last card is green so let’s go with blue.”

“That’s payback for giving you a draw four on the last hand,” she says as she draws four.

“Wait, so you know what payback means but not the word satisfied?”

“Yes.”

A minute later she lays down a yellow skip, a yellow draw two, and a blue draw two.

“Uno.”

“I can tell by your smile your last card is blue. Please give me a draw card four. Nope. Go ahead, finish me off.”

“All done, I win!”

The final tally? Twelve wins for my daughter and three for me.

I’m glad she won the last one otherwise I’d have to listen to her poor sportsmanship whine-fest again as she promptly forgets that in total, she slaughtered me.

File Under: Teaching Children Good Sportsmanship – Playing Card Games with Your Kid

Summary: A Toddlers Transcendent Stair Climbing Experience leads to Bedtime Nirvana

My daughter’s always been a powerhouse of gross motor skills. The very first time she picked up a spoon she held it like an adult. Same with a pencil. No gorilla grips for her. So when she started walking I was not that surprised that she did stairs foot over foot – going both up and down. This was unusual as most first walkers do one step up, then they bring the other foot up, then they go to the next step. On the way down most first walkers shuffle on their butt until they get confident they won’t fall to their death. However, my daughter would just blast down foot over foot. Sensing she needed some extended walking time, I took her to Blue Ball park. She’s probably one years old.

Connecting the lower park to the upper part is a set of stairs. After some playtime by the slides we end up at the base. She sees the stair case and just charges them like it’s a carnival ride. I’m serious, she was on a mission.

Foot over foot she goes. The distance is so wide she can barely reach the next step – so I give her my hand for balance. She’s not having it and shakes it off. She insists on using the top railing, which is quite a stretch for her, but she’s made her intentions clear – no assistance,  I’m going solo daddy.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven,…she starts knocking them out.

Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty…still going strong.

Fifty, fifty-one, fifty-two, fifty-three…impressive!

Seventy-four, seventy-five…seventy-six….seventy-seven……a bit slower now.

As she gets into the nineties she’s seriously dragging but still determined.

She get’s to step ninety-seven and just stops. She has a glazed look in her eyes and she’s looking a bit wobbly.

“So this is what a toddler looks like when they hit the wall?” I think to myself. It’s something you rarely see.

“More?” I ask.

She shakes her head.

Curious, I count the remaining steps. One hundred and twelve total. Just fifteen steps short.

What a puss.

Just kidding.

I chickened out there. I should had just left it as “what a puss”. Much funnier.

But I suspect if she had any concept of numbers and one-to-one correspondence, she would have knocked out those last three and made it an even hundred.

Anyway, we get home and I tell my partner about our daughter’s amazing feat (feet).

That night she fell asleep early, slept in late, and didn’t get up once. She slept like the proverbial baby even though I’ve never seen anyone’s baby actually sleep like one.

The next morning she hobbles into the kitchen.

“Fuck my legs hurt. That was way to many steps to do for a first try. Next time I better ease into a new training routine that intense.”

Not really, she couldn’t speak yet. But the look in her eyes told me everything.

That’s it for now.

File Under: Baby’s First Steps – Toddlers Gross Motor Skills Development – A Toddler Pushes Her Physical Limits and Goes for the Burn