Sydney and Kanye: Two Peas in a Pod?

If it is sacrilegious to admit your children annoy you, then let the shouts of “Satan!” come my way.

I love my daughter more than anything on earth, but this new “Terrible Twos” phase she is apparently hitting early is putting her just a notch below Kanye West on the annoyance meter.

Here are a few things Sydney has taken to doing that I am certain are designed to entice me into child abuse and get me sent away so she can spend her days eating nothing but cupcakes:

Spitting out her food. Somehow, she has come to believe that if she is eating something and decides – mid-chew, mind you -- she doesn’t want it, she can simply spit it out. This could be in her high chair, or while she walks around the house.

This is obviously unacceptable. And I have told her so. Loudly. Over and over.

The other day she took a couple bites of an apple, slowly opened her mouth and nonchalantly let the contents drop to the floor.

My wife’s response to this was, “Well, you know, she doesn’t like the skin.”

“Oh, OK, I guess we’ll let her turn our living room into an apple orchard because she doesn’t like the skin. She doesn’t like being confined to our yard either, so maybe we should let her take her toys to the middle of the street and play.”

Chirp. Chirp.

That’s the sounds of crickets. Sarcasm doesn’t go over well in my house when the wife is the target.

Believe me, I am going to break Sydney of this habit or I will end up in the graveyard of failed parents, alongside Dina and Michael Lohan and whomever parented Amanda Bynes. Throw in those teen moms from MTV, too. We’ll have a hell of a party.  

The only saving grace on this one is we have dogs that follow her around and scoop up her remnants shortly after they hit the floor. They stalk her as a tiger does its prey. I think sometimes she does it just to see the dogs eat it.

Is my child the only one who does this?

Throwing her plate of food on the floor. For a while, we had her “trained” to say “all done” when she felt she had eaten enough. She’d often say this with great exuberance, “All Done!” and that was our cue to immediately clear her plate and get her out of the chair.

Now, she seems to have eschewed our agreed-upon signal for the distressing act of dumping her food on the floor. Where does one learn this? If you know me and my rather large physique, you know very little food ever gets dumped off my plate, so this cannot be something she is learning at home.

Again, thank God for the dogs. I never have to worry about carpet stains because they are on those stray morsels faster than Kim Kardashian scurrying to her next red carpet interview.

Nevertheless, this brazen act is similar to spitting out her food and does not go unpunished.

But I am just not sure a 22-month-old mind yet comprehends the whole concept of “right and wrong.” I’ll keep trying, because, at some point, either she’ll get it or my heart will explode in frustration and I’ll fade blissfully from this earth to a place where all children happily eat all the food on their plates – including their vegetables -- carry them to the sink on their own and hand wash them to spotlessness.

Totally ignoring me. The other day, I asked Sydney 15 times to look at me so I could show her something. She was playing no further than five feet away. Somehow, she managed to keep her back turned through all 15 pleadings.

This is a remarkable skill, when you think about it. This single-mindedness and ability to block out the world around you might lead to great things. I imagine this is how Stephen Hawking is when he is working on some serious physicist stuff.

It is also a growing trend. She regularly has a very nonchalant attitude when it comes to taking directions from others. Perhaps she is practicing for her teen years.

I can’t wait for those golden years when she essentially serves as dad’s gopher, fetching a newspaper or beer, or picking up things his 50-year-old body refuses to bend for. I still remember when I was about 8 and playing outside with my friends, hearing my dad call “Brian!” several times and running inside to see what he needed.

“Can you change the channel for me?” he asked. (This was before the days of remote control.)

Ahh, the rites of fatherhood. When do I get there with Sydney?

Until then, I’ll continue to repeat simple commands like, “It is time for bed, let’s go upstairs” and she’ll continue to stack her Legos, like daddy’s voice is a dog whistle her ears are not attuned to.

So those are my top three complaints as of now. It is important to note that this is a fluid process, and as we conquer one annoying habit, another soon pops up. If you ask me six months from now, this list will be different and, perhaps, quite longer.

Now, I could also do a post on all of the things that I adore about my daughter, from her recitation of the ABCs in order to get everyone to clap for her; to her getting excited and shouting a 25-word diatribe, of which only about five are actual words you can understand; to the ultimate daddy-loving symbol of affection, the “Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!” I get when she runs into my arms upon my arrival from work.

But that would bore you. Or seem like bragging. Or paint me as a nice guy.

Call me a guy who likes to go against the grain. Even if it is sacrilegious to the shrine of parenting.