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I like to find the root cause of events and actions. It is a curious combination of two bad habits: Control issues and superiority complex. It really helps in parenting.

It requires answering a lot of "why" questions. This is important because you want to have an answer for something BEFORE the kid asks "why not Daddy?" This is critical as "because I said so" translates to "try it to find out" in kid language.

One behavior I wish to exorcise from my "perfect" (sic) children is tattling. I have succeeded so far with the older one.

The reason WHY tattling is bad is because it:
1. Bothers the parents.
2. Is intended to get someone else in trouble.

With the older one I was able to communicate this effectively. I pointed out that tattling was a way of trying to hurt her sister by proxy, namely the parent. And I don't like to be reminded that I have the mentality of a 6 year old so I refuse to be the 8 year old's lackey.

She understood this reasonably quickly (by the 10th reminder) and has since ceased. Her sister on the other hand doesn't get it.

When a child doesn't understand sometimes it helps to exaggerate to the logical extreme. This is how we come up with the "jumping off the bridge if your friends do it" logic. It is also how we sound stupid in public.

The first time I tried to reason with the 5 year old I tried to clarify by saying:
"Honey, tattling is trying to get bad things to happen to your sister. Do you want me to hurt your sister for you?"

Her immediate response of "Yes" was a moment of candid honesty that was rewarded with a time out for hate crimes.

Tonight I tried again, but with a different, albeit humorous tactic. She was attempting to be entertained with a gladiatorial confrontation by informing us of the misdoings of her sibling. As she related this I replied, my voice dripping with sarcasm:

"Since you're going to interrupt us with the news, I'm going to buy a commercial. I'll pay you a dollar to say 'Daddy is the greatest ever, tonight at 9' with each news break"

She turned her bright blue eyes to me, put her little chubby hands around my neck, hopped into my lap, leaned her cherubic face close to mine and said "Daddy, I love you."

Me: "Awww, I love you too darli...."
Her: "Now give me a dollar."

Lovely, now I have to explain why trading love for money is wrong too.

Elevator Etiquette

Children live in a world full of wonder. That is a nice way of saying they are exceptionally ignorant of the simple physics, biology and chemistry around them.

Moments of amazement and surprise should diminish with age. And yet gratefully, as a gift from above, we can find little wonders every day because we are surrounded by beings whose behavior is random and unpredictable. As I was this week by how people use the elevator.

I work in a building with a lift. Whenever I bring my children along in one it is like they are at a carnival. They fight to press the buttons and then freak out when the thing begins to move.

I take those moments to teach my children the simple etiquette of using an elevator. And to my wonder this week I find I should publish this for adults too.

1. Don't make smells in the enclosed space. It doesn't matter what perforation in your skin that odor comes from, no one else wants it. And if you find it necessary to either refrain from washing your clothes or begin bathing in cologne then just take the stairs you freak.

2. Unless there is only one elevator: let it go. Don't hold it for your five friends who are 'just around the corner'. Other people have places to be, and being held hostage by your buddies tardiness only inspires us to break rule number 1. Remember, the first time is tardiness. The second time we add the prefix RE.

3. Don't talk. This is an awkward enough social situation. Overhearing the continuing conversation of indiscretions resulting from toxic amounts of alcohol consumption is not how anyone wants to spend 2 minutes of their day. Trust me, we all assume you are a loser, don't give us verbal evidence.

4. No touching. My word, no touching.

5. No liquids. If it is moist and in you keep it there. This covers sneezes, coughing, crying and spitting.

6. No jumping. I know it seems funny to shake the little box with the people in it but if you scare someone half to death in the lift they will finish the job on you when you get out.

7. When the elevator stops get in right away or let it pass. Waffling about "it's too full" punishes everyone in the cramped space hanging in the air.

8. Face the door. There is a level of weird reserved for people wearing tuxedos at WalMart and folks who don't face the door in an elevator.

9. Let people get off the elevator before you get on. You may be critically important in your own mind but the 11 of us stuck in the suspended container would rather not be kept waiting while you push your way through the people trying to escape the guy who had a bean chimmichanga for lunch.

I think that covers most of it. If anyone breaks these rules feel free to use this line when they exit and the doors are closing:

"Oh, you should see your doctor about that rash. Mine said it was a good thing I'd come in when I did for mine."

Unless it's your boss.

Almost 6 year old spin

Humans are separate from other animals in multiple ways. We hide our shame with clothing. We are aware of our own existence. We blog (most of us only once).

It is truly fascinating that as a species we communicate to understand each other. It's way beyond "Stand still while I run away from that predator" or "lets go pick nuts" or even "hey, want to find parasites on me"? No, we as the higher creature attempt to fathom the intent of others around us.

In fact we are so adept at communication that we now have occupations that try to limit that, namely politicians, lawyers and MAN file editors.

In mutating the primal offspring into productive, functional members of society one must teach their children not only how to speak, but communicate. This is harder than it sounds, as we rarely realize that we aren't asking for what we want. Need examples?

"The garbage smells bad." == "Please take the garbage out to the curb you slob of a husband."
"You look good tonight dear." == "Please give hubbie 'special time' tonight."
"Are you going out again?" == "Please stay in, I'm jealous that you have a social life."
"Thanks for making dinner dear." == "Please give hubbie 'special time' tonight."
"May I have a word?" == "Shut up, you are wrong and about to find out how wrong you are."

I know I've done SOMETHING right as today my wife explained an incident between her and our younger daughter.

My diminutive descendant brought this piece of paper to my wife.



"Mommy, does this look like a sandcastle to you?"

My wife was about to diplomatically say no, which in parenting goes like "Kind-of dear, is that green part the ocean?" Before she could the not quite 6 year old said

"It doesn't. That's why I need to play my computer game."

She had recently borrowed an "Arthur Sandcastle" computer game from the Library. And she has been obsessive about playing it. To the degree of imitating a bi-polar Baboon if asked to take a break to eat, rest, or so help us use the washroom.

What impresses me the most is her creative way of presenting the issue. I simply hope in 10 years she doesn't ask for more practice time in the car the same way.

"Daddy, does that look like parallel parking to you?"

That's so stupid.

I'll be one of the first to admit I'm not the brightest distant thermonuclear reaction visible when our terrestrial rotation directs us away from the center of the solar system. I would be first to admit it but there is usually a lot of people clamoring for that opportunity.

I am reminded of my cerebral boundaries whenever I do my taxes, send an email without spell-check, contemplate the engineering of a piano, or try to understand my wife. And the old ego is continually sober due to the incessant backhands of reality.

As a result I suspend judgment on situations that I don't fully understand. That would be all of them. If I didn't I would be inclined to utter "That is so stupid" continually through my days.

Apparently many people don't let that stop them.

Daily I hear people say things like:

"Why would they put that door there. That is so stupid."
"Look at the design of this interface. How dumb is that."
"It's so retarded that they don't make the windmills more like pinwheels."

I used to try to direct these people to reflect on their own expertise in the field of discussion. Encourage them to contemplate that the person making the decision was not the recent victim of a zombie attack.

I realize I am not surrounded by morons (despite how they drive). People are typically rather intelligent and insightful where they make vocational decisions. Not that I trust them, they are still human and consequently would sell my safety for a cheaper pair of shoes, at least if the current policy on China is any indication.

Now instead of trying to convince people they are dumber than they sound I like to be there when they come to that conclusion on their own. I'll cheerfully agree with them, and one up them until they figure out I'm toying with them.

Them: "Why would they put that stop light there. That is so dumb."
Me: "Totally. It's like they want to stop people from driving. I bet the decision makers were drunk and hopped up on PCP's when they did this. And their parents were siblings. Whose combined IQ's were in the teens. I hate the planner who ruined my life by deciding that. Thanks for pointing that out."

As a public service, before you decree something as dumb, stupid, retarded or any other derision of others decisions please say this inside your head:

"Do I fully understand the situation and am making a rational assessment here, or am I an overconfident, pseudo-intellectual hoping for a chance to be on the Nobel prize committee?"

If you DO manage to solve the world's problems over the post-coffee break discussion at work, let me know, I have my response ready;

"That's so stupid."

Trust em as far as they can run (in the number of seconds that matches their age.)

Parenting is difficult. It is the only relationship that I know of that demands the balance of respect and interrogative suspicion.

Some people might take exception to my lack of confidence in under-trained humans. In my mind children are innocent only to the extent that the havoc they wreak is a combination of poor co-ordination and ignorance as opposed to malice.

This leaves me imagining the mischief my daughters could get up to when it isn't visibly apparent. This is how I keep the "eyes in the back of my head" myth going. I just 'happen' to show up to catch them because I have complex daddy algorithms running at all times.

(Click the chart to see it clearer, then go buy glasses)



And every once in a while you need to rewrite the whole thing because kids, being human, do something bat crazy that messes up the whole systematic approach. Like the algorithm for "things you step on in the dark".

So the other night we were discussing an upcoming sleepover with my older daughter and one of her friends. We moved on from the subject and a few minutes later she said:

"At least I don't come down in the middle of the night and play with matches."

?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Was this the random, hypothetical musings of of an 8 year old or was she tattling on someone by process of elimination?

Being the sensible father that I am I envisioned the 5 year old having late night pyromaniac binges. I pressed the soon-to-be-confessor for details on who in fact DID play with matches in the middle of the night. I dreaded phoning one of her friend's parents with that piece of information.

It turns out she was confusing a story she had read with some creative imagination of her own.

All the same I've added "were the children practicing for arson" to my morning checklist.

------------------

In an unrelated note Happy Birthday to the girlfriend who I was lucky enough to engage, fortunate enough to marry and who had the fortitude to endure 10 years of marriage to me. I love you, and although you are aging I'll take that over the alternative.

Dumping the conversation.

It is really hard to fit in sometimes. I have had the paralyzing social quandary invoked from accepting the invitation of a friend to a reception or awards symposium. You find yourself the only one in the room with nothing in common to anyone else. And those tend to be cash bar nights too.

Given a bit of warning to these events you can do your homework and avoid wandering on the outside of conversations like a free radical that has no purpose. By the way, that is entirely different than a rebel without a cause.

If it is an awards dinner, Wikipedia the organization and the history. If it is a wedding reception, do a bit of genealogy. Don't worry about finding bad news on either, just remember not to blaspheme the family clan in the receiving line.

But if you end up in a group that has young parents there is always a magic focus point that makes for laughs and a few tears. For people who don't have kids yet here is a gimmie: Bowel movements.

This is a great subject of interest. Learn all you can about size, stages, shapes, smells and textures. A few cute anecdotes can go a long way here. Don't use them as the starter though. Walking up to a group of people and saying "speaking of full shorts..." is going to cost you a lot at that cash bar.

Every young parent ends up talking about poopie so often that they forget their circumstances. More than once I've been at work discussing over the phone the mushier points of one of my offspring's offings. Normally, this has been with my wife, but amazingly not exclusively.

What that you say, you don't have a good turd tale to slide to a skidding stop in your next conversation? Have no fear, you can just say "I know a guy who..." and use this.

This week my younger daughter strode into the living room. My wife and I were enjoying each others company by reading separate books (for those who haven't been married long enough that is what we call 'boredplay'). The little urchin announced

Child: "Guess what!"
My wife: "What dear?"
Me: "You've achieved cold fusion using a dustbuster, a wet hankie and Richard Simmon's video 'Sweatin to the Oldies'?"
(they both roll their eyes at me each time, so fun that game)
Child: "My poop looks like something!"
My wife: "Poop?"
Me: "Solid toots? No, Abraham Lincoln with a bad hair day?"
Child: "A mushroom. Come and see!"

Seriously neither of us did. Make it bad parenting that we demand our children flush their posteriourly created art without so much as a viewing.

So now you can fit in with people who have little kids. You can even practice by dumping your best stories here now.