Category Archives: All Things Dad

Sagely advice from one who has this fatherhood thang down pat (I wish).

All Things Dad, Ramblings

The origin of the stupid rule

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This morning, I was contemplating stupid rules and how they come about. There’s some pretty bizarre laws on record in the state of New York. Here are some that I enjoyed:

  • Slippers are not to be worn after 10:00 P.M.
  • A person may not walk around on Sundays with an ice cream cone in his/her pocket.
  • While riding in an elevator, one must talk to no one, and fold his hands while looking toward the door.
  • A license must be purchased before hanging clothes on a clothesline.

Please note that I made no effort whatsoever to verify that these actually are law. I am well aware that I may be spreading misinformation, and in the likely event that I am, I apologize.

Disclaimer aside, stupid rules actually do exist all over the world. Even in my own house, I have some pretty stupid rules. They all stem from a desire to maintain the kind of order that Marlene and I feel is appropriate and necessary. Here are some interesting examples that I was reminded of while getting ready for work this morning.

Children may not talk while in timeout

On the surface, this may sound good and innocuous. It originates from some very real problems:

  • Loud complaints about the reasons for, or enforcers of, the timeout
  • Verbal play with other children while in timeout
  • Constant pleas to be removed from timeout

However, there are some logistical problems with this rule:

  • What if there is an emergency?
  • What if the child needs to go to the bathroom?

Marlene and I have made the decision that the number and variety of exceptions to this rule are too many, and could pose confusion for a 2 to 5-year-old who is (presumably) trying to comply with the rule. More likely they are trying desperately to find loopholes in the rule.

Regardless, the easiest thing for all involved is to enforce the rule that absolutely no talking of any kind is permitted in timeout. If this strict ruling backfires, for example if a child really does need to go to the bathroom and pees all over the floor, Marlene and I will deal with the fallout. The downside this morning was that Jasmin was not allowed to say “goodbye” to me when I left for work, because she was in timeout and could not talk to me.

Jacob, specifically, is not allowed to anticipate his parents’ desires

Jacob has a real problem with just doing what he thinks is the right thing, regardless of instructions. This is a consistent, repeated, longstanding pattern throughout his life. Couple this with a very strong tendency to misunderstand and misinterpret situations, and it’s a recipe for disaster. Let me tell you authoritatively, disaster happens with distressing regularity.

For this reason, Jacob is reminded again and again, “Do what I told you to do, and not what you think you should be doing.” It’s a very strange message. Do I want my son to grow to be a mindless puppet who blindly follows the direction of authority? Absolutely not. But he must learn obedience before he learns the much more complex topic of when it is right and good to disobey. Here’s a hint kiddo… it’s actually right and good to disobey far less frequently than you seem to think it is. Jacob is still far from mastering the obedience lesson.

The fallout from this rule today? Jacob was helping me pack my lunch for work, and I very specifically cautioned him, “Bring me exactly the foods that I ask you for. I don’t want you to bring me everything in the refrigerator just because you think it might make a good lunch food.” Well, at one point, I sent Jacob to get me tomatoes, and he came back with tomatoes and grapes. His reasoning: “Dad, I assume you want grapes for lunch today too.”

In this instance, he was correct! I had seriously considered having grapes for lunch, and very well might have asked him to get them for me next. So how did I respond? I told Jacob that he was correct, and I did want grapes, but that he specifically disobeyed my instructions, and if it were to happen again in the future, I would not allow him to help me pack my lunch any more.

If any child mentions cows or mooing while singing “Happy Birthday”, that child will not get any birthday cake

This is the rule that got me thinking along these lines today. Jacob was playing “Happy Birthday” as part of his piano practice time, and was singing along with his playing, as he sometimes has a tendency to do. While listening to him, I was reminded of this rule.

For the last few years, the children have enjoyed adding the phrase “Cows go moo!” to the words of the “Happy Birthday” song whenever we sing it at a birthday party. It seems that each time, their ad-libbing gets more and more exaggerated. At the end of last year, at Jacob’s birthday party, the mooing and giggling were so intense that I couldn’t even hear any singing over the cacophony. Hence the rule.

So far, no child has broken this particular rule, despite its stupidity. I guess the consequences are pretty dire indeed.

– danBhentschel

All Things Dad

The face game

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I over-think things. I’m well aware of this. I have even put quite a bit of thought into the games I play with my babies. Scary, I know, but with more than six babies living in my house across a span of 11 years, I’ve had plenty of opportunity to analyze. My favorite game is one I call “the face game”. The face game goes like this:

  • <point to Beth’s nose>
  • Beth’s nose
  • <point to my nose>
  • Daddy’s nose
  • <point to Beth’s nose>
  • Beth’s nose
  • <point to my nose>
  • Daddy’s nose
  • <point to Beth’s nose>
  • Beth’s nose

And that’s pretty much it. I repeat the procedure for various parts of the face: ears, mouth, eyes (carefully), cheek, chin, neck, etc. I always do hair last, and when we do the hair, I always help them to tousle my hair a bit. For each body part, I do baby first, then me, then baby, then me again, then baby again. After hair I end with:

  • <pat Beth’s chest>
  • Beth
  • <pat my chest>
  • Daddy
  • <pat Beth’s chest>
  • Beth
  • <pat my chest>
  • Daddy
  • <pat Beth’s chest>
  • Beth

What makes this game so special?

  • The face game works for a wide variety of ages. I can start playing the game with a baby immediately after birth, but kids continue to get enjoyment from the game up through age 3 or 4.
  • The face game encourages face-to-face time. We are looking at each other, studying each other’s faces while playing. It’s quite intimate.
  • The face game is very relaxing. I play at a very deliberate, unhurried pace. I use voice inflection, rather than bouncing and tickling, to maintain interest. It is almost hypnotic.
  • The face game is repetitive. It encourages pattern recognition. As baby gets older, she learns to anticipate what’s going to happen next. Inevitably, she starts to take control, and tries to run the game herself, and that’s just fine.
  • The face game encourages basic classification. Toss in a finger or an elbow. Sounds simple, but at a certain age, baby starts to recognize that these are not face body parts, and it’s a funny joke to her.
  • The face game is science. Baby is learning basic anatomy while she plays.
  • The face game teaches identity. Daddy is Daddy, and I am me. We are separate individuals, and yet we have a lot in common too.
  • The face game is calming and reassuring. Once baby is used to the procedure, that familiarity can have a comforting effect in confusing or upsetting situations.
  • The face game easily expands to multiple participants. I currently have a one-year-old, a three-year-old, and a four-year-old in my house. If I start playing with my youngest, the other two will frequently want to join in. Even my kindergartner occasionally wants to be part of the action.

Maybe this particular game is not for you, and that’s just fine, but I encourage you to put some thought into the activities that you do with your baby. What are the games teaching? What behaviors do they promote? What other benefits do they provide? Be deliberate about your parenting.

– danBhentschel

All Things Dad

Spring 2014 book search for Timmy and Nora (Part 2)

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For birthdays and Christmas I like to research potential books to add to Timmy and Nora’s wishlists. A couple of months ahead of time, I scour the Internet in search of likely options and download them as audio books from Audible. If I like a book, I can add it to the appropriate child’s Amazon wishlist. The first post in this series discussed my book selections for Nora’s birthday. This article will deal with my selections for Timmy’s upcoming birthday in mid-July.

A Mutiny in Time – by James Dashner

This is the first book in the Infinity Ring series. Two adolescents invent a time machine and manage to lose their parents in the past. So now the children need to travel through time, searching for the adults. On the way, they fight against an evil organization who has left sentinels in various locations and time periods throughout history. The characters and situations feel formulaic and contrived, and I didn’t enjoy this one all that much.

The False Prince – by Jennifer Nielsen

After the royal family is poisoned, Connor, a shady noble of the court, scours orphanages to find a doppelganger for the long-lost son of the late king. He pits three young orphans against each other in a “replace the lost prince” training program / competition. The winner will become his new puppet king, and the losers will be quietly disposed of. Unfortunately, Connor’s perfect plan doesn’t account for one spunky orphan: Sage. This is the first in a trilogy, and I enjoyed it so much that I intend to listen to the rest of the series in the near future. I definitely want to share this book with my son.

Sky Raiders – by Brandon Mull

Ahh… Brandon Mull. What a wonderful author. Once again, he is able to take a pretty stupid sounding premise and craft a spectacular story around it. In this book, a group of teenagers are pulled through an inter-dimensional portal in the basement of a haunted house, and become slaves in a magical world. One of the teens joins a band of raiders who scavenge for treasure in a sky full of flying castles. This is the first book in a brand new series, and I can’t wait for the next installment to be available.

Slathbog’s Gold – by M. Forman

This is the first book in the Adventurers Wanted series. A young boy sees a poster in a small shop advertising “Adventurers Wanted”. His curiosity gets the better of him, and he decides to investigate. Before he knows it, he’s on a quest with elves, dwarfs, and other such folk to slay a dragon. At first I thought that the whole plot seemed a bit trite, but this one really grew on me. Worth a try.

The 13th Reality – by James Dashner

This series of books is about alternate realities. A boy gets a letter in the mail stating that he has been entered into a contest of sorts, and that there is danger involved if he chooses to participate. As he tries to decipher the clues in his attempt to prevail, he also starts to experience some inexplicably strange phenomena. I found the decisions made by the characters in this story, especially the parents, to be somewhat unrealistic. That detracted from my enjoyment, but it’s still a unique and interesting story.

Water Keep – by Scott Savage

Another first in a series. A boy from Earth meets a girl from a magical realm, and they have adventures together as they search for Water Keep. It sounds pretty mundane, but part way through the book they start to discover how to travel back and forth between the two worlds. Then they discover rules governing the interactions between the magical realm and Earth, and they come up with some inventive ways to use those rules to their advantage. Very clever, and quite enjoyable.

The Inventor’s Secret – by Chad Morris

The first in the Cragbridge Hall series. This is another time travel book, but it is significantly better executed than the Infinity Ring book I spoke of earlier. A brother and sister find out that their grandfather has been abducted, and they need to decipher the clues that he left for them to figure out who took him and why. One thing I love about this book is that it is full of historical events, but they are not your standard ancient Egypt, Revolutionary War, etc. Many of the history “lessons” found here were relatively new to me, and the topics were rather fascinating.

The Lost Heir – by E. G. Foley

The first book in the Gryphon Chronicles. This is a story about a young orphan living on the streets in Victorian London. One day he learns that he is actually the long lost son of a nobleman. His parents were not only wealthy and respected, but they were also magicians, and were employed in a secret society to police magic use across the globe. This wasn’t a spectacular book but it was enjoyable and I think the series shows promise.

Zoe & Zak and the Ghost Leopard – by Lars Guignard

I didn’t get too far through this one. I stopped listening after this passage:

It’s kind of rude, but I guess the thing that most stood out about the guy was his muscular butt. His butt kind of filled out his tight black Speedo like it was made of steel or something.

I’m sorry. I’m not interested in reading about an 11-year-old girl checking out a grown man’s butt. I got a refund for this book.

Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library – by Chris Grabenstein

A group of children spend the night in the world’s most unlikely library. Seriously. This place is like a high-tech Hogwarts. Stupid premise aside, I actually ended up grudgingly liking this book… somewhat. It reminds me a bit of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Not great, but certainly not bad.

The Sound and the Echoes – by Dew Pellucid

The first in yet another series. I’d give a plot summary, but I couldn’t follow this one at all. I don’t get it. What just happened? Why did he do that? Who’s that person? I tried. I really did. I got a bit more than half way through, and then gave up and asked for a refund.

The Fairy-Tale Detectives – by Michael Buckley

This is the first in the Sisters Grimm series. After their parents disappear, two sisters are shuffled around from one terrible foster home to another until they end up living with their grandmother in a town that turns out to be a sort of prison for fairy-tale characters. They join their grandmother, a self-appointed detective, on her escapades to solve fairy-tale-related mysteries. This is a bit more juvenile than what I was looking for. I might keep this series in mind for Nora in the future, but not really for Timmy.

Bloody Jack – by L. A. Meyer

Umm, wow. This is not a book for an 11-year-old. In 19th century London, a young girl has to fend for herself on the streets after her whole family dies of a plague. She stays with a group of similarly hard-on-their-luck children for several years until the leader of the group is gruesomely murdered. She then decides to wander and ends up disguised as a boy on a ship whose mission is to hunt down pirates. This book is violent and sexually explicit. At one point, a man attempts to rape what he thinks is a cabin boy. When he discovers the boy is actually a girl, he’s ecstatic… until she puts a knife in his gut. The story is fascinating, but I don’t want Timmy reading this book for a long time to come, if ever.

11 Birthdays – by Wendy Mass

I loved The Candy Makers when I read it in preparation for Nora’s wish list, so I was curious to try another of Wendy Mass’s books. 11 Birthdays for Timmy’s 11th birthday. Why not? This is a Groundhog Day story where a couple of the characters are repeating the same day (their 11th birthday) over and over again. Very well executed, and not a common theme in children’s literature, as far as I have seen. Highly recommended.

The Colossus Rises – by Peter Lerangis

The first in the Seven Wonders series. Impossibly intelligent kids live in a secret base on the lost island of Atlantis. They need to figure out stuff so that they can do stuff so that they can save the world. This is another somewhat predictable sci-fi / fantasy children’s novel. When I first started reading it, I almost gave up because the tone of the narrative, especially in the beginning, was too over-the-top for my taste. I went back to it later, though, and decided that it’s not as bad as I had originally thought. I didn’t ask for a refund, and it ended up on Timmy’s list.

The Wolves of Willoughby Chase – by Joan Aiken

This is apparently a well loved classic that I have somehow never heard of. It takes place in an alternate 19th century where wolves roam the land in enormous packs that are an ever-present threat to society. A poor girl goes to live with her rich aunt and uncle and their young daughter, but soon after she arrives at her new home, the adults disappear (presumed dead) and the girls need to fend for themselves against the elements and against greedy people vying for the family’s wealth. Short and very unique, this gets a thumbs-up from me.

– danBhentschel