Trying not to Raise a Kardashian

                                                            Nothing but sweetness, right?

How do you ensure your kid grows up to be a “nice” person?

It is not a rhetorical question – I hope you will give me your best advice.

My children are very different. Sydney is loud, outgoing, brash. Tyson is reserved, quiet, maybe even a little timid.

We met the Easter Bunny last weekend. Sydney ran to him and hugged him like he was her best friend. Tyson clung to my legs.

A neighbor whom we don’t know walked her dog by our house the other day. Sydney ran to the end of the driveway and started a conversation with her like they were old friends.

Tyson clung to my legs.

Their personalities, so far, are completely different. They are very stereotypical: Sydney is verbal and very smart with vocabulary. Tyson is quiet but is much better than his sister at math, puzzles and similar activities.

Their differences are evident in other ways, too, and that is where I am concerned. Take Christmas for example. Sydney tore through her presents like the Tasmanian Devil. As soon as she had the wrapping off one, she was reaching for another.

Tyson still had unopened toys weeks later. If he opened something he liked, he would play with it for the rest of the day, not worried about what he could have, but content with what he had.

You see where I am going here?

I have said it many times before: If someone were to offer Tyson a balloon, he would ask for one for his sister. He is THAT nice and thoughtful.

On the other hand, if Sydney saw someone offer Tyson a balloon, she would run up and steal it for herself.

She is THAT kind of kid.

This isn’t a learned behavior. Some of it might be from being the first born and having all the attention for nearly two years, but I think she was born like this.

Ask Tyson to help clean the room, he is on it. Ask Sydney to help and you get three hours of bargaining and procrastinating and outright defiance.

All I have to do to get Tyson to go to bed is set my phone timer to go off, no matter what time it is. He knows that when the timer goes off, he has to go to bed and he starts heading that way.

The timer is like the bell at a boxing match for Sydney. Time to start the verbal sparring in order to squeeze in another hour or so of play time. She comes out jabbing like Muhammad Ali.

Before you say, “You can’t let her get away with these things,” understand that I know that and I don’t. But my point is, I want her to act the right way without the threat, or distribution, of punishment.

Also, I have known kids who grew up in very strict environments, where they were afraid to step out of line or challenge their parents on anything. Sometimes that doesn’t work out so well, either. I’m not trying to turn my child into a submissive robot or someone who rebels with drugs or other felonious behavior to deal with overbearing parents.

She’ll get her fair share of groundings, or worse. But I don’t believe I can punish someone into being a good person. She has to come into that on her own.

  

More than once, my wife and I have looked at each other and asked, “How do we make her understand how important this is?”

I had friends visiting this summer and they have two older children who are respectful and very well behaved. I asked my buddy how he and his wife did it, and his answer was vague. Really, they simply tried to steer their children between right and wrong and hoped for the best. So far, it has worked. Or they just got lucky. Or both.

I asked another friend the same thing a few weekends ago. He and his wife have raised three daughters who are all on their own and doing very well as adults. His answer was much the same.

But how much of it is luck? I know siblings who grew up in the same environment. One is an empathetic soul who leads a successful life, while the other is a pathological liar who scams everyone in their path.

Some of it has to be the luck of the draw, right?

  

I spend a great deal of time trying to keep my kids safe. Sydney is so oblivious, she wouldn’t see a car coming until the Ford emblem was implanted on her head. Tyson would play football on our flight of stairs if I let him. They’d both put coins or balls or other choke-able items in their mouth if we weren’t watching them 24/7.

Safety is always the number one concern. It won’t change as they get older. I’ll worry about them experimenting with drugs or driving drunk or hanging out with some knucklehead who thinks Interstate 71 is the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

A lot of energy is spent on keeping them safe. Then, you worry about their intellect and how smart they might become. You spend hours reading books to them, playing online learning games and ensuring they are watching educational TV.

At some point, I am sapped of parental energy. Yet, there is still a mountain to climb: turning your kid into a “nice” person. Someone who respects others, cares about others and is not as self-absorbed as Kim Kardashian.

But then again, Kim’s doing ok. Maybe the selfie-centric way of life is the way of the future?

Screech!!!! Hold the phone. Pardon my interruption!

While I was writing this, my daughter just came up to me and gave me a nickle she had found on the floor somewhere in the house. Instead of keeping it, she gave it to me in “case you need to buy something for yourself.”

Not buy something for HER. Buy something for ME. What a quantum leap forward! Perhaps not all is lost.

Maybe 4 years old is a little too early to consign the fate of "incorrigible" to a child. Maybe I am worrying for no reason.

But just in case, feel free to send advice my way. I’ll be the clueless dad in the corner.   

Straight Out of TV Hell

One of the rare times they are not pestering mom and dad.

Have you ever tried to watch a movie with a 4 year old and 2 year old in the same house?

Check that. Have you ever tried to watch even a half-hour television show with the children bouncing around the house?

Thank God for DVR. If I couldn’t record and then stop and start a television show a million times, I don’t know if I would ever watch anything from beginning to end. I’d forever be trapped in a loop of NCIS crimes that occur but never get solved.

When I first discovered DVR, I thought its main use would be to prevent fights between my wife and I. Suddenly, I had this tremendous device that allowed me to stop whatever I was watching and look intent and concerned while my wife babbled on about her day. When she was done, I picked right back up where I left off. Genius!

But now that I have kids, the DVR experience has reached a whole new level. With approximately 36 interruptions every time my wife and I sit down to watch a show, the DVR is the only thing that allows me to stay up on the disturbingly new macabre cases Criminal Minds stars must solve.

As soon as we sit in front of the TV, chaos ensues. This is when the kids choose to fight. Or cry. Or need something. Or ask questions.  

It is “Mommy, can I have a drink?” or “Daddy, listen to this new song I made up,” every five minutes. Or, like clockwork, the dreaded, “Daddd--yyyy, coommmeee wipe me.”

Yes, she does it in a sing-song way.

Last night, in the middle of a Criminal Minds playback, Tyson, who isn’t potty trained and shows no interest, asked if he could pee on the potty. This necessitated in a 15-minute break from the show to watch Tyson NOT pee because he really never intended to. It was all part of the master plan the kids have to ensure mommy and daddy don’t stay current on The Middle and The Goldbergs.

Mind you, we actually only try to watch a show three or four times a week. Ninety percent of the time, both televisions we have downstairs are turned to Team Umizoomi or Little Charmers or some kid’s movie on Apple TV while we do parent things.

I get home about 5:30-6 p.m. Bed time for the kids is, hopefully, 9. I’m usually exhausted and ready to go down at 10. In between, dinner, baths, bedtimes stories, packing backpacks for the next day, etc. TV usually has to wait until the weekends or that rare weeknight when it all comes together just right.  

I currently have about 37 hours of taped shows on my DVR. They hang over my head like a guillotine. Will I max out without watching them and have to start erasing for new tapings?


Happened a lot on Time Warner. But Direct TV gives me more storage. Crossing my fingers.

My brother recently gave us some black-market gadget that allows me to watch pretty much every movie ever made. I can get movies that are in the theater right now! They may have Chinese subtitles or the sound may be a half-second off from the visual, but I get to watch Straight Out of Compton without going straight out of my house.


That is a nice treat for a couple who has not gone to a movie theater since Sydney emerged from Brooke’s birth canal four years ago.

How many shows have I watched? Well, I got half way through Black Mass. Did the FBI ever catch that Whitey Bulger guy?

And in Straight Out of Compton, I got to the point where NWA hit the airwaves with Fuck The Police.


That can’t go well for them.

That’s it. Two half movies. Not 2 and a half movies. Two HALF movies.

My wife, on a whim, picked up a RedBox movie while at the grocery the other day. We literally had to order our two children into the other room every five minutes in an attempt to get through it. We got about three-quarters of the way through and the DVD had a glitch, not allowing us to go further.

DAMN YOU, REDBOX!

That makes three movies in the past month where we have no endings.

When we moved into the new house, I signed up for Direct TV. They gave me a package with free HBO and Cinemax for three months. When that was up, I called to cancel. The customer service guy offered to increase my access to movie channels for the same price.

I laughed. More movies I can’t watch? Yeah, I’ll pass buddy.

At some point, these kids are going to be more independent and willing to play on their own. At least Tyson will. Sydney seems to need an audience for everything.

If they ever reach that point, I plan on catching up on a decade’s worth of movies and television.

Until then, if you see me, try not to dish out any spoilers on The Good Wife.

Things Dad Says....Over and Over and Over

I’m as popular with my kids as Ariana Grande at a bicentennial celebration. 

Why? Because I say the word “no” one million times a week. 

“No” is programmed into a parent’s DNA. It might not be the first word children say when they begin talking, but I have to believe it is the first word they understand.

Baby begins to cry? “Shh. Shh. No, no little one.” Baby grabs something that can kill them? “No!” Baby latches on to breast with the suction strength of an industrial Hoover? “Nooo!” Baby experiences explosive ass disorder? “Oh “Nnnoooo!!!!” 

  

It doesn’t stop at “no.” I am a human “repeat” button. In fact, I wish I had a string attached to my chest that I could pull every time I needed to utter one of my frequent sayings:

“Why are you being so loud? Use your inside voice.”

“Stop hurting your brother!”

“That is NOT how we act.”

“Did you wipe?”

You say it over and over and hope it sinks in. Usually, it does not.

Tyson has a new thing. He has this puzzle-like book, with the puzzle pieces being farm animals.  He’ll pick up the piece and ask, in his broken-English, barely-above-a-whisper baby gibberish, “Where does the cow go?” He wants you to repeat it to him – “Where does the cow go?” Then he takes it to the book and puts it in its place and shows you where it goes. Then he repeats the same thing with the horse and the pig and so on, and so on.

So I have said “Where does the cow go?” “Where does the horse go?” “Where does the rooster go?” “Where does the pig go?” a million times each in the past couple of weeks.

Forget reading a book. Forget watching a movie. (Why the hell do I pay for Direct TV?) I spend too much time pretending like I don’t know the cow goes into the freaking cow slot on the puzzle!

It got me thinking about all the other things I say over and over in the quest to keep my children on the straight and narrow – or simply from killing themselves. I’m sure my “sayings” are creating more bad blood with my kids than you might find at a Taylor Swift concert, but I am going to keep doing it.

Because my goal is to keep them ALIVE. And out of jail.
 

In that order.

Here are some of my most popular hits:

Stop hurting your brother!: My daughter thinks it is funny to squeeze her brother… really hard. Or to press down on his head…really hard. Or to lay on him in a way that will certainly suffocate him in about two and a half minutes. I don’t find it as funny, and neither does he.

Use your words.: I learned this from my wife. Apparently, this is something teachers use with young kids. I had never heard it in the 35 years before I met her, but now I use it several times a day.

  

My daughter has a tremendous vocabulary and is a verbal butterfly, flitting from topic to topic with ease. Yet, at times, she thinks it is ok to communicate with the world in guttural sounds. Usually this happens when she is trying to fill quiet periods. She doesn’t like quiet. So, I spend a lot of time telling her to use her words or not say anything at all. She usually chooses to do neither.

Don’t put that in your mouth!: I spend an inordinate amount of time trying to keep my kids from choking to death. They have no qualms about putting anything into their mouth. Caps. Rocks. Coins. Whole cupcakes. My wife once ate a dog turd – mistaking it for a tootsie roll – when she was a kid, so they clearly take after her.

     

You are fine.: My kids are as graceful as a hippopotamus on ice. They fall and start crying as often as one of those Real Housewives tries to attack a co-star. What is a daddy to do? I’m not raising any wimps. “You are fine.”

It will work until a bone is broken.

That is NOT how we act!: This almost exclusively applies to Sydney. With Tyson, I just say “no.” He is not old enough to understand the whole idea behind good and bad behavior. Sydney is. But understanding and obeying are two different things. No, it is not appropriate to color in daddy’s books. Or on the walls. No, you can’t soak the dog with that water gun. No, I would rather you didn’t scream and cry and throw a kicking tantrum while we are shopping at Krogers. Or while we are walking from the car to the house and our neighbors are all out in their yards doing nice, civil family things.

Did you wipe?: Self-explanatory.

Stay away from the edge of the pool!: I know this is a first-world problem, but I swear kids have no sense of how close death is. It is always right around the corner, people! Neither of my kids can swim. That doesn’t keep them from dancing around the edge like Rumer Willis.

They also will do this with two 100-pound dogs frolicking in their direction, dogs whom I happen to know would have no issue knocking a toddler into the water if said toddler were between them and 1) any morsel of food, 2) a nice pat on the head from their owner, 3) any critter that dared enter our back yard or 4) an ominous leaf floating in the pool that is no doubt a threat to said 100-pound dogs.

Don’t interrupt when I am talking to other adults.: Sydney commands attention 24-7. If you have a friend over and feel like having a normal conversation – well, that is the best time for her to start asking a million questions. “Dad, do snakes bite?” “Dad, why does Siri talk funny when she answers our questions?” “Dad, what Palace Pet would you want to be?”

She asks even if she knows the answers. “Dad, what color is your black shirt?”

Don’t interrupt when I am on the phone.:  She desperately wants you to understand that what she has to say is the most important thing in the world. If this means singing a made-up, gibberish song at the top of her voice while you are on the phone for work, well, so be it.

Don’t be so loud!: Outside of “no,” by far the most used in our house. I’m a loud talker and so is my wife, so this should not be a surprise. Sydney speaks at the same decibel level as a 12-gauge shotgun blast. It is annoying in the house. It is worse in public: “Dad, I need a wipe!”

That’s the current list. I am sure I will have to add a few dozen to this list by the time they are teens. It won’t make me popular. But it might just get them into adulthood.

Defiant behavior: Extinguish or Encourage?

I don’t know what I was like as a toddler, but I am pretty sure I was an a-hole for my mom to raise once I hit my teen years.

I not only thought I was the smartest kid on the block, I assumed I was smarter than most adults in my life. I had the confidence to consider myself the captain of my own destiny and in need of no one’s help to get where I wanted to go.

Those are admirable qualities. Unless you are a parent trying to keep a teenager in check.

My ultimate weapon, when all the arguing was done, was silence. I would go days without saying a word to mom. It wasn’t worth my time.

Like I said, a complete a-hole.

I bring this up now because Sydney is driving me crazy. And the other day, my mom said to me, “She reminds me a lot of what you were like when you were a kid.”

Thanks, mom. Now, not only do I not know how to stop the behavior that drives me crazy, I’m not even sure I want to. 

I only have experience raising two children. I can tell you raising Tyson is 100 percent easier than my daughter. And I think a lot of that has to do with personality. Tyson's is much more like my wife's and Sydney's is much more like mine.

Tyson is laid back.Up until the past few months, he rarely even got angry. He’s two now, so we are dealing with a few temper tantrums every now and then, but they pass quickly.

Sydney is a…challenging child. Her initial answer to anything you try to tell her to do is an emphatic “no.” Tyson pretty much does what you tell him. Sydney pretty much wants to know why you want her to do something and she’ll make you tell her seven different times and threaten punishment before she does it.

Everything is a fight. Bed time? Tyson might let out a little statement of protest or cry a little, but he’ll march right in there. With Sydney, it is a two-hour argument. Daddy, one more book please! Daddy, are dinosaurs extinct? What about turtles? Daddy, let me give you 30 reasons why I should not go to bed right now. 

Every…single… night. Ugh.

Tyson would fit right in as a Marine or soldier. He is a selfless team player who does what he is told, trusting it is for the greater good. Sydney is the high school student who gets expelled from school for defying  authority and running a school newspaper story critical of the principal because she thinks it is the right thing to do.

    

Tyson might become the victim of a bully. Sydney would punch out that bully…and then bully her brother herself.

Tyson will share his jelly beans with his sister. Sydney will accept the ones he shares, and then take the rest when he isn't looking. 

Tyson is content and can play by himself for hours. Sydney commands the attention of everyone in the room 24-7.  

She is exhausting. She is bull headed. She is feisty. She is selfish. She is a prima donna. She is…like her daddy.

There, I admitted it.

Is that something I want to change? For all the negatives, there is no way I am where I am in life without developing extreme confidence and independence at a young age and riding that attitude straight into adulthood. I came from a poor family in a small steel town; anything I wanted in life I had to take.

Those same traits that drive me crazy in her toddler years will send me to an early grave during her teen years. But those traits will also ensure she never becomes a battered woman or settles for anything less than the best in her mate. They’ll help her knock down glass ceilings she faces in the workplace and deal with workplace bullies who think they can boss her around. They’ll allow her to cope when friends abandon her, enemies come after her or life throws her curveballs of misery.

I heard on the radio recently that therapists like to say life is a pattern. The same things you do as a kid, the same mistakes you make as a teen or young adult – those types of things will repeat themselves throughout your life. We can’t really get away from our real selves.

I know there are things I wish I had done differently. I’m sure I’ve made doozies when it comes to mistakes. But overall, I’m pretty happy with where I am in life. I’d absolutely wish that for my daughter.

Don’t get me wrong. She needs and will learn to be humble and unselfish. But that inner drive she has, that little thing inside her head that tells her to question this or stand up for herself on that, that confidence that forces her to say no even when her head is telling her daddy is on his last nerve…I don’t think I want to extinguish that.

But those teen years are going to be painful.

"I Want More Balls"

Tyson is finally calling me “dad” with some regularity.

He’s said it once or twice before, but over the past month he has really started to talk and that is one of the words in his burgeoning vocabulary.

                                                                    Tyson at a recent hospital check up. He said "fish"
                                                          about a dozen times while looking at this aquarium-like contraption.

This has been a long time coming with him. I only have Sydney to compare him to, but the two have definitely had different strengths and weaknesses when it comes to development. Interestingly, they seem to fall along traditional gender lines.

She was quick with talking and intellectual-type things, while she was slow with walking and other gross motor skills. Tyson was the exact opposite. Even in what they choose to focus on, they seem cornered in tradition: Sydney knew her ABC’s at a young age, while Tyson was counting before he really started speaking.

His words are still not very clear. He actually sounds a little like Marlee Matlin. But hey, he’s talking. We will still likely get him in some sort of speech therapy, but a month ago I was absolutely sure he needed intense work with an expert. Now, I think maybe just a little help will do.

He has a sister who talks more than a wife on a Real Housewives show. I am convinced her chatterbox nature has kept her brother from talking. He can’t get a word in edgewise.

The other day, he said his first complete sentence.

“I want more balls.”

Now that could lead you to some pretty interesting interpretations. I’ll save you the headache: he was talking about cheeseballs – those neon orange things that somehow pass for food.

My wife and I used to have an agreement that we wouldn’t feed our kids junk food, but somewhere in the past year or so, my wife fell off that wagon and, since I am only a secondary parent when it comes to feeding, I have no say in the matter.  Her explanation is that he is tiny, she is worried about his growth and she is going to get food in him any way she can.

At least it has given me a good joke for years to come:  “Hey, my kid took forever to talk and when he finally did, he looked at me and said ‘I want more balls.’  ”

OK, maybe not so funny.

But I love when he calls me dad.

Lots of What to Dos? as a Parent

                                                               Henrietta the Hedgehog


Sometimes, I need the help of a child psychologist.

Luckily, I have one working for me. She’s an intern who took the job because she needed the job, not because it is going to be some prerequisite to a PR or marketing career.  We hired her because she blew us away in the interview process and she hasn’t disappointed since.

So in addition to having someone to do our crappy jobs here at work, I have access to someone who is studying the behavior of children and can be of help with advice on raising two toddlers. As most of you know, my answer to everything is to Google it. But some questions go beyond “How do I take a splinter out? or “What are these red splotchy things behind my son’s ears?”  and require a professional opinion.

And boy, do I have questions. For example, do I tell my daughter her artwork sucks, or do I pretend like she is the best at everything she does?

Sydney has a recent fascination with drawing and painting. I’m not sure her artwork is good even for a 3 year old. But if I tell her she needs to work on it, that could be really discouraging. If I tell her it is fantastic, will she ever work to get better?

For now, I play it safe and say something along the lines of, “Wow, that is very interesting.”

And really, when you are talking about art, could you be wrong? There is a whole genre of art – abstract – that makes no sense at all. I could drink two cases of beer on a Saturday night and puke on a canvas and someone would probably pay me $100 for my incredible abstract work of art.

But it gets fishier with other things. Sydney took a tumbling class this year. She is as athletic as the Big Bang’s Sheldon Cooper. I practiced with her, but she just can’t seem to grasp even the simplest of tumbling exercises. Her bear crawl becomes a butt crawl. Her crab walk becomes an exercise in pushing her stomach across the floor. Her somersaults have you fearing for her life.

I’m convinced, at 3 years old, this child will never be an athlete. I want to be encouraging. I want her to keep trying.  But I feel like oohing and aahhing at everything she does and telling her how great she is might lead to self-perception problems when she gets older.

I’ve yet to ask Sara, the child psychologist, about that question, but I did ask her the other day what to do about a child who uses a stuffed animal as a security blanket.

Sydney’s hedgehog, Henrietta, must go everywhere she goes. She cannot go to sleep or to day care without Henrietta. It has gotten to the point that when we head to the grocery, Henrietta buckles in the cart.

This can be a massive problem if “Henri,” as she calls her, gets lost. It results in massive, uncontrollable sobbing, and resistance to doing anything in life until Henrietta is by her side. So, should she have to go to bed while Henri is missing, there is no going to bed. We have to search the house high and low while she loudly sobs to the point of heaving.

Our previous day care provider once drove Henri to our house at 9 p.m. because Sydney had left her there that day. When we said , “You don’t have to do that,” her reply was. “Oh yes I do, because I know from experience how miserable your night will be if she is not there.”

We lost Henri once while running errands. She is likely in a Hyde Park parking lot as we speak. My wife thought she would be clever and went to Ikea and bought seven identical hedgehogs. It worked! Brilliant move.

But not for long. After series of lost and founds, Sydney now realizes she has three hedgehogs. And she actually has a favorite – the one that feels the fluffiest. If you try to substitute one of the others, you get the sobbing. She actually knows the difference.

The other day, she dropped Sydney off at day care and by the time she had arrived at work five minutes later, she had a call waiting from her from the day care provider. Heni was gone! We didn’t know it at the time, but she was sitting on the floor of our garage, the victim of a careless child and a too-busy-in-the-morning daddy.

When Brooke tried to talk some sense into Sydney, she was met with sobbing to the point of almost throwing up. The girl was in a complete melt down and on the verge of physical collapse. Luckily,  Brooke keeps a brand new “fluffy” emergency Henri in the car for just such occasions and was able to drive the few blocks to the day care provider’s house and save the day before the opening bell rang at her school.

Now, you can imagine how this goes over with me. There is no way I am driving back to day care after getting to work because of a stuffed animal. When it is time to go to bed, I am not crawling under every couch and chair in the house looking for a hedgehog.

My solution is, if she loses it, she lives with it. She will cry for a couple of days – cry massively – but then we will be done with this. Of course, my wife thinks this is barbaric.

So I ask the child psychologist.

She is more on my wife’s side. Tell her that just like Sydney needs some alone time from her brother, Henri needs some alone time from Sydney. Or, tell her that she won’t be able to take Henri to pre-school with her and, since this is something Sydney is really looking forward to, she needs to practice being without Henri.

I guess these are the humane ways of doing things.

This is definitely not the way my learn-by-hard-knocks dad would have handled things, but he never had access to a child psychologist.

Or patience.  

Maybe I am getting soft in old age. Or my kids have melted my hardened heart. I’ll give these new-fangled approaches a try. I’ll show everyone I’m no Archie Bunker.

My kids will be happy, my wife will be happy, even Sara the intern will be happy.       

The Secret to Enjoying Your Cheese Coneys with Kids in Tow

After doing this for three years and two kids now, I think there is one area where I have parenting down pat:

The dreaded dinner out.

No, I don’t have the perfect make up for the either sorrowful or angry stares you receive when your 3-year-old daughter melts down because just the tiniest sliver of ketchup touched her cottage cheese or when your 18-month-old son throws a fit because he wants to hold his own cup and doesn’t like your parental attempts to save the restaurant from flooding.

But I am a fast eater. I mean really fast. And if there is anything I have learned as a parent of toddlers, it is that you have a very short window when eating out. You basically need to plan your get-away while being seated and ask for the check as soon as your food reaches the table. Otherwise, you are playing with fire. And I mean fire of the worst kind: a complete melt-down-by-a-3-year-old fire.

I used to be one of those single guys who ate out by himself, quietly reading the paper in between trips to the buffet bar. I hated when my Frisch’s fish sandwich was interrupted by the temper tantrum of a 2-year-old. I looked on in disdain at the parents who couldn’t keep their kids under control in a public place.

No more.

I now know that there is no controlling the emotions of a toddler. The littlest things set them off and getting them back on course is more difficult than moving Disneyland to Ohio.

Threaten to take them to the car? Three things are going to happen. First, they are going to escalate and get louder at the thought of losing the privilege of eating out. So your situation actually worsens. Two, all eyes will be on you when you carry a kicking and screaming toddler from the restaurant. Embarrassing. Three, you are going to miss your dinner.

Those who know me know I don't like missing dinner.

Threaten punishment at home? As “soon as we get out of here, I’m going to…” Good luck. They will have long forgotten the incident and punishment will be a moot point. You can’t learn if you don’t remember why you are being punished. Children have the attention span of a gnat.

The best thing you can do is prevention. Get out of there before a melt-down happens.

I am one of the fastest eaters you will ever meet. When I was a kid, we were poor. Hot dogs were a regular meal. Hot dogs come in packs of eight. There were five members of our family. I can guarantee my dad was getting a second dog. The other two were up for grabs to the fastest eaters.

I learned young.

So when it comes to restaurants, my wife and I have a game plan. We sit down and immediately ask for the kids’ food. That gets delivered first and we hope it holds their attention. When our food comes, we immediately ask for the check. We sometimes have to explain our “short window” to the server, but most of the time they get it. They either have their own kids, or they are thankful we are willing to get out of there before the floor under our table is covered with Splenda packets.

Then I do my thing. I eat like Hannibal Lector at the county morgue. My fork flies fast and furious. Just about the time the kids are starting to get antsy, I am cleaning the last bit of Skyline chili off my plate.

Then, it is wait-and-see time.

If we all get to stay at the table until the wife is finished, that is a bonus. We just enjoyed a nice family dinner. But if one of the kids is on the verge of a Tasmanian Devil impersonation, I am free to swoop them up and run for the car as fast as possible, leaving my lovely bride – and our fellow diners -- the luxury of a peaceful meal.

Voilà! There you have the Gregg secret to eating out.

Parents-to-be, take heed. Start practicing now. Study the menu for the shortest cooking times. Learn what goes down smoothly and what will take time to eat. (This is no time for crab legs, for Heaven’s sake!) Know what restaurants have the best items of distraction, or bring them with you. (We have even been known to bring the iPad.)

You heard it here first. Bon Appétit!