The Top 10 Ways You Know You’ve Gone from “Dude with a kid” to “Dad”
Category: parenting
The absurdity of toddlers
Toddlerhood is defined by Having Opinions. Our youngest (a.k.a. “Hurricane”) is current smack dab in the middle of Toddlerhood, and so has some Very Definite Opinions, not just on food, but on life in general. We currently believe:
- We Can Do It All By Ourselves
- Animal Mechanicals is Very Silly
- We are Afraid of the Bathtub
- Daddy is Very Silly
- Mommy is the best source of all snacks, and therefore her location must be known at all times
- NO LET ME DO IT
- We Can’t Like Grilled Cheese Sandwiches
- Honeynut Cheerios is the Best Cheerios
- LET. ME. DO. IT.
If you have not had the mindmeltingness joy of a toddler in your life, imagine your new housemate is a miniature, incontinent Saddam Hussein, complete with lots of shouting, garish outfits, and absurd demands. Here you are, trying desperately to retain what little sanity you might have remaining from having reared them this far, and then they enter The Phase.
It’s as if there was a coup in Nowherezistan and you are now facing a determined terrorist opposition.
Like the United Nations, you meet feverishly with the rest of the security council. There are a lot of speeches made. The new regime is denounced. First, you try to reason with the new dictator and are stonewalled.
Put on your shoes so your feet don’t get cold.
No I caaaaan’t find my shoes.
Carrots are employed.
If you put on your shoes, we can go to Starbucks and you can have some popcorn.
No I want to stay in my jammies!
Sanctions are threatened.
If you don’t hold still and let me put on your shoes, you won’t get popcorn!
NoooooooooOOOOOOOOOO
Finally, the conflicted is escalated.
*Grabs half dressed, screaming child and carries child out of the house*
*screams, cries, kicks, goes stiff as a board to avoid getting strapped into a car seat*
Eventually you win the battle, if only because you’re bigger and stronger and have figured out where on the hips to press to fold a child in half without doing any internal damage, but you are fighting never-ending war of attrition.
Without doubt, though, the most frustrating Toddlerisms are food related.
Our children don’t eat so much as graze continuously.
I have been told this is better for them for a variety of reasons –smaller stomachs, faster metabolisms– but for me, it means I can never get the kitchen cleaned up and raisins are everywhere.
And then there’s just the sheer randomness of it all:
- Cereal, but only Honeynut Cheerios, and only if the milk and cereal are presented in separate containers and he is allowed to pour the former into the latter BY HIMSELF
- Grilled cheese sandwiches, but only from Panera
- Chicken nuggets, if presented in pleasing shapes, like dinosaurs
- Peanut butter and jelly, but must be cut into halves diagonally so as to form triangles, but don’t you dare cut them into quarters or I WILL SHANK YOU
I get it, I have to feed my children, no need to call social services. Also, I have an amazing and wonderful wife, so the kids will always have box of wine three square meals.
I have been through this four times now, and in a way it does get easier, if only because the bar was set to “survival” a long time ago.
There are perks, though.
4 actually useful things to buy a new dad
Following up on the heels of my barely read moderately amusing post 5 New Parent Quote Gifts Unquote I thought I’d try my hand at doing something useful for once already like maybe take out the trash do I have to do everything around here? . So today I am going to focus on the actual most important person in any new baby situation, and that’s the new dad.
Dads, this is going to be tough. Fortunately, if there’s one thing we have experience with at Nostrikethat industries, it’s accidental reproduction how to survive the Shock and Awe from new parenthood.
Remember men, it’s not retail therapy if you’re doing it to Be Prepared.
1. Sound-Isolating Headphones
problem it solves: baby won’t stop crying
There is going to be a time when you will be confronted with a very small human who will not stop crying.
They sound like small angry goats.
“B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-AAAAAAABB-B-B-B-B-B-B-B”
You change them, you feed them, you have wiggled their legs to get them to fart, and they’re still screaming. If you were thinking logically at this point, you would determine these are your options:
- Keep trying unsuccessfully to calm the child, and continue to accrue cortisol, the stress hormone.
- Put the child down in a safe place, like a
closetcrib, back away, shut the door, and listen to the screaming from somewhere else in your house - Exit your house
Might I suggest an alternative? A good pair of in-ear headphones will allow you listen to the soothing melodies of Bob Marley while holding your screaming bundle of joy, allowing you to ensure they don’t choke on their own hat while at the same time not going completely insane. This is a great opportunity for you to get some hero points and give your post-partum beloved a much needed mommy break.
Also works well on any car trip longer than 30 minutes, because we’re not allowed to unstrap children and hold them any more in the car.
2. Baby Backpack
problem it solves: Strollers are horrible
Women are deeply attached to their strollers. I think because, like minivans, they are an extension of their birth canals.
Now, I have nothing against the idea of strollers, I’m just saying they’re incompatible with important things, like fending off a Ninja attack. A good backpack has far more mobility, and as an added bonus will work your core muscles like nobody’s business.
3. Scottevest alpha jacket
Problem it solves: Diaper bags
A diaper bag is really just another purse. And like your wife’s existing purse, you will never be able to find anything in it.
Unless you’re willing to feign incompetence and drop your baby on their head act utterly helpless, you are probably going to have to change diapers. Have your own kit, stuff it into the 35 different pockets in this bad boy, and enjoy hands free baby stuff toting. As an added bonus, the jacket is designed with concealed carry features, which I don’t really understand but sounds badass.
4. Roku media player
Problem it solves: you have no kids TV shows
Technology is changing so fast, in the 10 years since I have started having kids I’ve gone from primarily VHS, to DVD, to ripped movies, to cloud everything. Whatever you do, you want to avoid having the kids handle anything resembling physical media, because your DVDs will last about 5 seconds before they get scratched. The only thing more infuriating than buying a Barney DVD is buying the SAME DAMN DVD again because it’s a favorite and it has been rendered inoperable. Cloud is where it’s at, and the Roku set top box is the best.
Now, we stream Netflix and it’s the kid’s only source for TV, which I am fine with because they don’t have to watch commercials. This isn’t a post about cord-cutting, but it’s totally viable with the Roku and maybe an over the air HD antenna for The Sports.
We had an Apple TV first, but the Roku really changed our life for two reasons:
1) It automatically plays the next episode in a season. A lot of the programs for the wee ones are 6-10 minutes long, and sometimes you just want to plunk the kid down in front of the tube and take a shower without being interrupted to put on the next show.
2) The Roku3 has a headphone port on the remote. Big deal, right? ABSO-FREAKING-LUTELY. Unless you have a giant house, you will probably be somewhere in earshot of the TV, and without fail your child will fall in love with the most annoying TV show in the history of TV shows.
Teaching your toddler to wear an inexpensive set of headphones will save your sanity. Before they’re toddlers, you can just kind of prop them up in front of some kind of Baby Einstein program which is essentially an acid trip committed to video and go have a quiet solitary poop all by yourself. Then when your wife gets back from her much needed “Not wearing spit” time you can be all like “Oh yeah honey no sweat, just me and the kid, dropping some NYC, having a great time” and she will be so relieved to not be wearing baby spit she will totally overlook the obvious drug references.
Just remember Dads, we are unique and special snowflakes, and sometimes to keep from melting we have to take extraordinary measures. Like Vegas. Vegas is excellent for snowflakes.
Shout out to my brother in law, who is having twin girls Real Soon Now.
Ahem.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
I’ll see you in HELL, sir.
No, Strike That 