daddyville

As we were driving home from Pre-K today my 3 yr. old daughter was telling me how she really, really wasn't tired and therefore it really, really wasn't necessary for her to take her usual nap. She had a hard time telling me this as she was trying to hold back the tears that were ready to betray her. She was half crying as she was trying to explain to me how a nap was quite pointless to her well being and state of mind.
"Really though Shayla", I said "Naps rejuvenate us and freshen us up for more activity". She wanted to have nothing to do with that. I just let it go.
Once we pulled into our nieghborhood and she realized that we were really going home she started up for a little bit about wanting to go out somewhere else. On ocassion we do just that, but not today as this little powerhouse needs to get back on her napping schedule, which happens to be better for All parties involved.
As we were rocking a little with the light out before the nap, as is our custom, she asked for a story which we do intermittently before naps. On this day, rather than turn the light back on and find a book, I just started telling her a little oral story about a girl named Shayla that thought that naps were overrated. One day she discovered that she loved them and was forever changed by this crystal clear realization. She had been foolish before to think that she was missing out on something somewhere while her nap was underway....
At first Shayla balked that I was cheating because I didn't have an actual book in my hands and because the story was about the glories of naps wherein she was the star character, but before long she settled. She listened to the rest of the story, and then asked, "Can I get in my bed now"?
"Absolutely", I said.
I tucked her in. Gave her a kiss. Clipped the hang nail she had just told me about, and then stepped back to watch her start to drift away.
Very well. Now all was right in the world. A nap was not only needed, but was warmly recieved at long last.

Please, O Please I don't want to play that word game yet again today, but I am going to because there is no free will on this side of the game table. I am the 'contestant' and she is the game runner and 'host' all rolled into one. That is just how it is. I used to talk more than she, but those days are loooong gone. Now, I just try to keep up with whatever she's talking about if I can, which is not always possible as there are chores to do and life to live While she is talking. The normal pauses and breaks in dialog are simply just not there.
My reality would be something akin to hanging out with a friend that didn't know about the invention of periods, paragraphs, or pauses. Well, to be honest they do know about one article of punctuation, the exclamation point and they use it indescriminately. Their volume is also all out of whack: talking LOUD when they should whisper, and whispering when you need them to speak up. Funny. Telling them this wouldn't usually change anything either! Who of us has a friends like that?! Zero to none, I'm sure. I will tell you right now that 'parenting' IS the only place where this will ever happen in which you are held hostage AND you are not being paid for it, and there is no end in sight. There is an end they say, but while you are in this stage of your kiddos development....you are IN IT. Society doesn't really support this kind of relating out in 'the wild'. The fortunate thing is it will change.
Their incessant need to repeat each phrase 6-10 times is kind of hard on the nervous system day in and day out, and God help you if you don't understand something that they are trying to tell you after the fourth or fifth run through. At that point you might as well call in a translator (not mommy. She's already looking at me like, "Pal, I have no idea"!), but since you cannot do that, you half pretend you understand and ad lib from there. Hopefully they work with you on this--are graceful and accept that this is a moment when mommy and/or daddy need a little loving slack--and not decide that they cannot handle your incompetence and therefore have a meltdown in which they must pull in the whole household into the drama of the point they're trying to make. Sound funny? I assure you it's funnier in print. I told this to a friend of mine who has two daughters, and he lovingly said in point of fact dryness, "You did have a girl".
"Right", I said. "Yes, we did".
"No", he said. "YOU did".
"Ahh. I see", I said. "The Chromosome Issue", I asked?
"It's no 'issue', just true", he said.
"Got it". "Thank you", I said.
"No prob", he says.
"This guy's not pulling any punches. A true friend", I think to myself. Gee. School of hard knocks from more than one angle. Hehe.
Anyway, back to the story...
Once I'm awake and seen 'out in the open' (on any given Saturday or Sunday) in my house I'm involved and engaged full tilt boogie, and it's that way until she's (my 3 yr. old daughter Shayla) in her bed and I close her door 13 hrs. later that night. A three year old doesn't know about union sanctioned breaks and lunches. :-) I'm a stay at home dad, so I look forward to the extra help from Momma that the weekends usually afford. But I sometimes feel like a spy in my own house, listening at my door before I open it and enter the game arena. "Can I make it to the bathroom incognito", I think to myself? For all the noise that happens in our house, my daughter still has supersonic hearing. She'll be in the living room with her mother watching one of her shows and having a conversation simultaneously, and STILL hear me slink out of my room. How, I have no idea, but she does!
"Daddy's Awake", she shrills!! Ahhh, and just when I thought that I might get to go to the bathroom by myself. Negative ghostrider. I remember that the bathroom used to be a kind of private place..., right? Hmm. Maybe I'm thinking of something else. I can't quite remember.
I love being a dad, even for all the challenges it presents. It's a wondrous job full of intensity, vibrancy, and change. One of the greatest things that changes is you. It's a real life stretching exercise that births in you the ability to do things that you never thought possible. You love and take care of your children and they change your life enabling you to do things that you never knew you could do and all without your Constant awareness of it. It's quite clever really on the part of creation: keeping you busy with one task while also accomplishing other things at the same time.
Fathering is most certainly a universe of God unto itself. Childless adults take heed: the womb is an interdimensional doorway. Respect and Revere.

Shayla is just now starting to put together the the pieces of her observation that boys and girls go to the bathroom differently. Like with mommy, she also wants to accompany daddy to the bathroom as well. Many times, in fact most of the time I discourage her from coming into the bathroom while I'm going to the john. But she sometimes suceedes in coming in any way. Of course, I am very gaurded about my bathroom routine, shielding, positioning and all the rest. One thing she knows; daddy pees standing up. She sees the back of my clothed figure, and tries to get around me while I ferociously block all attempts. Of course the day will come when I simply do not allow her into the bathroom at all when I am relieving myself. That day is nigh at hand. She commented to me the other day, "Wow. How do you do that without getting any pee pee on your pants"? I simply replied, "well, I've had a lot of practice".
Now she wants to pee standing up, really bad. It's become her fascination. That is her new thing although she really can't figure out how that's possible With her clothes on and standing in front of the toilet. I told her not to be concerned about trying to do that. I said, "It's really pretty difficult, so let's not worry about that for now, ok"? I know she's still contemplating it though and hasn't really let it go.
Last weekend we were out in nature and it was her first potty in Nature without a toilet, so she thought that this would be as good a time as any to practice her standing-to-pee skills. Of course it just ran all down, but that was fine with her as she'd just removed all her clothes in order to really get the hang of it. Later she decided that she wanted to try #2 in this same fashion (in Nature, like I said above), and it happened so quickly that we couldn't change the course, only stand back laughing to ourselves. Thank goodness for 'wet ones'. Watching this was pretty funny. What's even more comical is that I think that she really wants to figure this out. More power to ya, young lady. :-)
Earlier this week I was out with her somewhere and I wound up having to take her into the mens' bathroom so that daddy could go pee. There was no one else in the bathroom and if there had been we would've gone into a stall or used the women's bathroom instead--these are sensitive situations--kind of obvious, right? Well, anyway it was the kind of mens' bathroom where there is a row of urinals along the wall. I made her stand behind me as I quickly relieved myself. She was very good and stood totally still in this foreign environment. We then got out quickly before anyone else came in. She didn't say anything then, but I'm waiting for the inevitable slew of questions: "What kind of potties are those along the wall"? "Does everyone stand there like that"? "Does anybody sit down on them"? "Why doesn't mommy ever stand up to pee"?
Interesting times with the young scientist. The most popular current question is "Why?". Trailing in second is "Why?", and a close third is "but Why?".
Grins and giggles.