I’ve made it pretty clear before, I worry a lot about my little girl and how easily the world can beat down the confidence that she displays every day. She is truly beautiful and completely innocent. Let me explain…

If you don’t know, my daughter is extremely outgoing and knows no boundaries when it comes to ages. For example, she loves on her big cousin like they are the same age – she doesn’t know any different. So when the neighborhood girls were out selling lemonade, my baby girl wanted to be out there with her. Jade is 4, these girls and 7, 8 and 9 – in other words, Jade is still rolling with training wheels while these girls cruise around on their cool mountain bikes.

Does Jadyn care? Nope…

So today, while the girls were out again, Jade ran outside to play with them. All was well until the girls started playing hide-and-seek and Jadyn was it. So what did the older girls do? They decided they were bored with the game and went inside while my baby girl was outside still looking for them (not sure if they were trying to ditch her or not, but we’re guessing so). My wife found her behind our neighbor’s house still searching for her new “friends” that were “hiding”….

It broke my heart to hear what had happened – and I get the same kind of feeling even as I type this. Jadyn has pretty thick skin, and I hope it stays that way as she didn’t realize that the older girls had ditched her – she just thought they were really good at the game – but one of these days she’ll put the pieces together and she’ll break down…and I’ll be right here to help her understand that she is a part of something bigger…

I can’t control the world, but I can control the type of environment my kids grow up in. This is a perfect example of that environment. Brent and Tam do a great job with their kids and despite the worldly troubles that kids find themselves in, their daughter fought through it and hung on to something bigger than her. That is the kind of hope I find myself hanging on to while my baby girl goes out playing with the girls in our neighborhood….

As it typical of most days, my wife was giving me the “run down” of the days events as I was sitting with her for dinner.  I love hearing about her day and all the crazy things the kids got into.  Well today she painted an interesting picture of how my daughter views the roles of a Man and a Woman when it comes to work….

Jadyn wanted to call one of my wife’s female friends.  My wife had to tell her that she couldn’t call her because she was at work.  My daughter thought she was joking as she laughingly replied, “Mom, she isn’t at work.  Only Daddy’s go to work.”

Wow.  My wife quickly explained that a lot of Moms and Dads have to work, and that she should feel lucky that her mom is able to stay home with her.

As parents, we don’t want to pigeon hole our kids in anyway, but it is clear that Jade sees work as the responsibility of the Dad because that is the world she exists in.  My mom stayed at home, Andrea’s mom stayed at home, and now Andrea stays at home.  Who knows what Jadyn will end up doing, but it forced me to think through the fact that Jadyn is really sifting through life right now.  She is drawing conclusions and developing her own opinions on how things should work.  She is watching ME and developing an idea of how fathers treat their children, and how husbands treat their wives.

She is growing up way too fast….

Tonight after dinner, I had to do something for the very first time – confront my daughter about something she did, and then listen to her lie about it.  Here is what happened…

I installed landscaping lights in the front of our house, but have moved a few of the lights around after burying them, so there are a few patches of peaking wire hanging out from the landscaping rocks.  On my way to Church Council meeting last night, I noticed that someone had pulled the entire wire out from under the ground.  So I naturally assumed my daughter was involved and approached her about it….

Me – “Jadyn…can you come here?  Jadyn, did you pull out the wire in Daddy’s landscaping?”
Jadyn – “No”
Me – “Well if you didn’t, who did?”
Jadyn – “Ron and Paul”
Me – “Who is Ron and Paul”
Jadyn – “Workers that were working on the wire”

By this time, I can hear my wife laughing out loud and she can see where this is going.  I bring Jadyn into my office, sit her down on a chair and look her in the eye and say…

Me – “Jadyn, you know its wrong to not tell the truth, right?”
Jadyn – “Right”
Me – “So tell me the truth, did you pull Daddy’s wire out”
Jadyn – “Nope”

By this time I start laughing out loud right along with my wife.  As I start laughing, so too does my daughter.  I had to pull it together and FAST!  I finally was able to connect with Jadyn, and she owned up to the fact that the neighbor girl and her did it but the journey to that point was a tough one!

Today’s example: the baby gate. We’ve had this freaking thing for months, I still don’t know how to work this thing. In fact, I don’t even know how to get it “off” the stairs….

Take toothpaste and baby powder, poor both into the sync and stir in water with several toothbrushes.

Yeah, she got a timeout…

It sounds weird, but I’ve had to make a conscious effort to be a father to my 1 year old baby boy the last few days.  It has been a while since I’ve been a father to a 1 year old.  Its much different than being a father to a 6 month old or even to a 3 year old.  (At 1 year old, Asher is at that weird stage where you can’t really let him play by himself because he still can get into everything yet he doesn’t ever truly want to play by himself, yet he doesn’t really want to be held….blah blah blah….)

Now is the time that Asher starts to develop and learn to interact.  Now is the time I start to build the “father-son” bond that will last forever.  Now is the time I start to teach him how to treat his mother, his sister, and future siblings.  Now is the time I begin to lay the foundation for my little man.

Asher is really starting to become his own person and that forces me to recognize the different needs he has.  As terrible as it sounds, the mere fact that the boy is a product of God’s grace has been lost on me at times.  I forget just how crazy it is that he is even here today – yet he is, and he continues to grow right in front of my very eyes – and it ain’t slowing down at all!

Fortunately for me, I have a wonderful woman in my life to keep me in check (even my little girl is good at this these days).  I don’t want to be sitting her 10 years from now knowing I missed out on an opportunity to be the dad I know I can be.  There is nothing more important to me than that right now.

Take for example my prior post – a photo of our baby boy crying because he doesn’t want to walk barefoot  in the grass – wuss right?  Well the other night, my wife took it to a whole new level with our daughter.

We are working on getting Jadyn to not pee her bed at night, so we (and by “we” I really mean “Andrea”) will get her up around 10 at night and take her to the toilet.  Now as you can imagine, she is in a half-awake stage at that point, and usually not completely “there” at the moment.  For example, last night, when getting her out of bed she randomly yells, “with a cherry on toooooooop”…  I started laughing so hard I nearly peed myself, but that was just the beginning.  Andrea then ask, while Jadyn is on the pot, “Do you want to go to Church right now?” to which Jadyn replies, “Yes.”  Andrea then goes on to ask her if she wants green beans and I pop in and ask her if she wants to drive a school bus.  The school bus thing kinda pissed Jadyn off because she began to shake her head while saying, “noooo”….

So all the parents out there, how do you torment your kids?!

I love you Asher and I am so very proud of you!

Jadyn’s Bike Ride from CJ Mills on Vimeo.

Los had a great post up the other day that really hit home with me and my weekend alone with the kids.  Here is what he had to say:

You know there are sometimes when you feel like telling your Father, “no”.
There are other times when you kick, scream, and cuss, “NOOOOOOO!!!!!”
Yesterday, in the midst of the worst hike up Stone Mountain I have ever experienced, it all made sense.
Again.
Like He always does, He shows me truth through the weak example I have for my own son.

It was cold. He was heavy. It was steep. He was screaming. And none the less, we made it up that freaking mountain together.
When we got up he was as happy as he could be.
But my son let me know that he was NOT ok with the weather, his outfit, me carrying him, or me teaching him a lesson as I let him walk for a moment on his own and letting him fall so he would finally let me carry him with no contesting.
I did not leave him on the side of the mountain and pick him up on the way down.
I had the thought, if only for a moment, but I carried that whaling child all the way up that mountain.
Never leaving him alone.

If only we could remember that while we are screaming and swinging, He is still walking, holding, and breathing.

I love that.  Now I’m sure Los wasn’t thinking “what a cool lesson” while climbing up the mountain, and neither was I as Asher continued to cry and scream through the night, but it makes it all worth it just to remember – He is still walking, holding and breathing.

Andrea made it back home last night and to say I was happy about that would be a huge understatement.  She does such a great job managing our house and parenting our kids.  Here are some thoughts I had over the 48 hour period of playing Mr. Mom:

1.) I wish that men could grow boobs when their wives went away (so they could nurse – duh).  Having to heat a bottle while holding a baby screaming for said bottle sucks.  Being able to provide warm milk on the fly would be awesome.

2.) Is asking a 3 year old to feed her 7 month old brother a terrible idea, or just a bad one?

3.) If watching football put kids to sleep, this single dad thing would be wicked easy.

4.) I love hearing my daughter say “daddy”, except when that number exceeds 50 times in one day and is followed by the words, “i want”…..

5.) Life was so freaking easy with one kid.

6.) I wonder if Andrea would come back from Chicago if I asked her to (this was at 3:17 in the morning).

7.) I have a lot less patience than I thought I did (and I already knew I  was impatient).

8.) I’m pretty sure the neighbors think I’m beating my son (this was at 3:18 in the morning).

9.) I wonder if Andrea would think my job is as hard as hers is.

10.) I love my life.

Yes, its true…but only for the weekend.  Actually, I’m pretty excited for her – she deserves some time away, but I’ll be honest in saying I’m a bit nervous.  I mean, after all, I’ve not watched BOTH kids, overnight, by myself….EVER!  

I can tell you that even in the few hours that I’ve been a single dad, I’ve grown to appreciate what my wife does day in and day out.  For example, I freaked out a bit when I realized both kids were up and I had yet to shower.  Shoveling the drive was even crazier (picture me running back and forth on my drive, checking inside every 30 seconds to make sure both kids were still alive!).

I keep telling myself that this is only two days – she does it all the time – it can’t be THAT hard, right?….RIGHT?!

Its been fun to come home after work and listen to her talk about her “day” at school. She’s even getting into asking me how MY day was. Nothing like hearing your 3-year-old ask, “Daddy, how was your day at work?” – pretty stinking cute.

Listening to a 3-year-old try to explain EVERYTHING she did while at school is hilarious. My wife tells me she’s already the class favorite and Jadyn says that everyone laughs at her jokes, so she apparently is the class clown. I’m going to have my hands full!

I have not been the best father to Jadyn over the last 3 years.  I let her mother do a lot for her, and as a result, she tends to give her mother a lot of love back – makes sense and Andrea completely deserves that.  Recently I’ve started to think that I’ve been cheating Jadyn and have wanted to be more intentional about interacting with her.  I’m embarrassed to say that I’ve never taken my 3 year old daughter out, just the two of us, so I decided to do that tonight.  We had our first Daddy/Daughter date night and it was a blast.

We went to McDonald’s – where every 3 year old wants to go for dinner – and dropped massive change on an extravagant dinner ($7).  She got me napkins and a straw, all by herself (she was pretty proud of herself).  It was fun to “talk” about what she “did” today and how excited she is for her new house and new toy room.  After dinner, we went back home to play Wii together and eventually settled down and went to bed.  It was a lot of fun and I deposited a lot in the relationship bank with her tonight.

I feel as though I’m missing out on Jade’s life and tonight was a big step towards gaining that time back.  I look forward to more dates in the future, which I know will develop a massive ROI (return on investment for you simple folk).

Jade was in rare form last night.  It actually was pretty funny – until she stopped listening to me alltogether.  I gave her a few warnings, and then resorted to something I don’t do very often – spanking.  I hate spanking her.  I hate the fact that she becomes afraid of me for a brief moment in time.  I’m pretty much a sucker and she knows it.

Curious to know if any other parent out there struggles, or had struggled with this same issue…

As I mentioned in an earlier post, we’ve got our house up for sale and have been playing the whole “get out of the house while it is still clean so people can come see it” game for a few days now.  It is always scary making this kind of jump, especially in today’s economy, but we feel an eerie peace about it.

Despite all the stress of playing “adult” for a while, its always good to come home and enjoy the kids.  Kids don’t have to worry about anything important – they just live.  Jadyn doesn’t know anything about mortgage rates, who she is going to vote for or how to cure the economic tailspin we find ourselves in.  She does know, however, that her parents love her and that she has a home to play in.

I’ve made this comment several times, but I figure I’d make it again – I want to keep my kids away from the real world as long as possible.  I want them to enjoy life without having to worry about all the “what if’s” that every adult faces every day of his or her life.  Asher has been a great reminder of the need to step out of the “real world” and enjoy the simple life every once in a while – the need to enjoy life’s simple victories and simpler pleasures.  The life that involves loving on my kids and not thinking about anything but how lucky and fortunate we, as a family, are.

Kids are pretty good at that, aren’t they?

Now, I don’t want you to think this happens all the time, but any honest parent would admit the same. Sometimes you let things slide because arguing otherwise isn’t worth the energy.

Jade’s snack below is an example of one of those “whatever” moments. (yes, that is peanut butter on a spoon…she likes peanut butter like I like ketchup)

Today I turn 26. Check out the early birthday gift Asher gave me last night.  While watching the Cubs game, Ash decided to drop a load – a load that would eventually leak through his diaper, and then through his pajamas, and then on to my shirt.

Best birthday gift ever!