Finding Out the Gender

We know what the gender of our baby will be.

We think.

Let me explain…

I am a reporter by nature, so I like to know everything before anyone else does. Obviously, given a choice, I am going to want to know if it is a boy or a girl. Plus it makes the planning much easier. I admire people who can wait nine months, but it is not me. If I am taking a trip, I want to know the train schedule ahead of time.

Who is worse than me with surprises? My wife. This is a woman who introduced me to the concept of telling people what you want for Christmas. I always assumed everyone tried to surprise their family and friends with a gift that was just right for them. (Although I will admit to at times shopping on Christmas Eve in I-71 gas stations as I traveled north for my family Christmas.) Her family takes all the surprise out by simply saying, “Buy me a Ke$ha CD for Christmas.”

Heck, she even wanted to shop for her own engagement ring. Being the highly romantic guy that I am, I wanted the whole “Will you marry me?” thing to be a surprise.

(By the way, I not only bought the perfect engagement ring myself, but my popping of the question was indeed a grand affair I am quite proud of. Feel free to ask her to tell the story sometime.)

So, between the two of us, there was never any argument as to whether we would find out the gender. But, my wife somehow cooked up a way to learn it even earlier than we planned.

There is a spa-like place in the community of Mason, just outside Cincinnati, that specializes in moms-to-be. Becoming Mom offers maternity clothes, massages, skin care, nail services, the ever popular “waxing,” and, finally, ultrasounds to determine the gender of your child.

A friend of Brooke’s told her about it and from that minute on, she was working me for a visit.

“Wouldn’t it be nice to know before Christmas? What a gift that would be.” Or, “Your mom is coming down in December and it would be great to take her so she can be a part of the experience.”

Yeah, she played the mom card on me.  

While we could wait another month and get this info from the doctor for free, I agreed to pay $70 – we had a coupon. My wife has a coupon for EVERYTHING! – and get it early.

My main concern was that we would get the wrong information. Brooke assured me they would get it right – after all, they guarantee to give you your money back if they are wrong.

Well, of course.

How’s that for a business model? I don’t know what an ultrasound machine costs, but I could buy one, charge parents $100 a pop, guess at the gender and make some dough. Even if I am wrong half the time, it is all profit.

(Forget what I said. As I am writing this, I looked up the price of an ultrasound machine. $135,000 freaking dollars! We wonder why health insurance is so expensive – medical equipment companies, doctors, hospitals – they are all marking things up thousands of percent and lining their pockets.

It would be easier for me to pass myself off as some sort of supernatural belly reader. No upfront investment and all profit. You pay me $100. I rub my hands over your belly and a gender pops into my head. If I am wrong, I give you your money back. If I am right, I am one Ben Franklin richer.)

Despite my concern about accuracy, we forged ahead. We showed up on a Saturday morning -- mom, dad and Sydney -- eagerly anticipating word of whether Sydney would have a little brother or sister.

Now, despite my declaration pre-Sydney that I 51% wanted a boy, this time around I really did not have a preference. My experience with Sydney has been so positive I would happily welcome another daughter into the fold. In fact, I feel a little like “I’ve got this,” when it comes to raising a girl, while a boy would be a whole new world to me. I’m especially worried about whether it would require more energy than an old geezer like me – two months away from my 47^th birthday when the baby is born – has to give. 

At the same time, I like the symmetry of a son. And there are things a son brings to your life that are different from a daughter. Part of me wants to experience those, too.

So, I really, truly had no preference as we passed through the “waxing” department and made our way to the ultrasound room of Becoming Mom.   

The place was nice. They escort you into a little room that is very clean and family friendly. Toys for Sydney, lounge chairs for daddy and a comfortable table for mommy. They dimmed the lights for a calming effect. It felt warm.

It did not calm Sydney, however, as she roamed around the room Gangnam Style while the technician lubed up her mother’s belly in preparation. In fact, the whole time the supernatural belly reader, I mean, ultrasound technician, was rubbing the magic wand over mom’s belly, daddy was chasing Sydney around the room, trying to get her to stay away from breakable items.

In the middle of my quest, we heard the heartbeat. Always a nice moment, even if Sydney was babbling over it. 

A few minutes later, the technician pointed to a tiny spot on the screen and said we were having…

A boy.

Yes.

A boy.

Now, this is where the “we think” part comes in. To be completely assured I am having a boy, I would have to wholeheartedly trust that this ultrasound technician is indeed an ultrasound technician – I didn’t see any license hanging on the wall – and that she really knows what she is doing. That little spot she pointed to was not distinguishable to me. These ultrasounds are all Rorschach blots to me. That spot could have been an elbow or a nose and I would not have been able to tell the difference.

Plus, I have a Fantasy Football team called the Big Anacondas after a nickname I have acquired over the years. So I was expecting the “spot” to be a bit larger than it was.

Ok, maybe it is a self-given nickname.

My wife, however, was sure. She said she knew before the technician knew.

I trust my wife more than I trust the technician. She had a gut feeling going in that it was a boy. She accurately predicted a girl with Sydney. She is the real-life supernatural belly reader.

So, I am having a boy. The perfect family gets more perfect.

I am one lucky man. I get to experience the joy of bringing up both a son and a daughter. I am blessed beyond anything I ever expected in my life.

Am I worried? Sure. There are more sleepless nights ahead. I have no idea how I will afford the bigger house. When it’s time to teach him how to turn the double play or post someone up under the basket or throw the perfect spiral, I’ll be in my late 50s, with a bad back and creaky knees.

But I now will have two children who give me a reason to get up in the morning. I’ll have laughter echoing through my home. I’ll have tea parties to attend and football games to watch. I’ll have double the hugs and kisses.

Being a dad has been the greatest experience of my life. Now, I get the pleasure of doing it again.

I can’t wait to meet my son.

This is Going to be as Painful as a Root Canal

We have hit another baby milestone and this is not going to be pleasant.

Most milestones are positive. They are things you celebrate. The first tooth. The first words. The first steps.

I couldn’t have been prouder when I got Sydney to do her first high-five.

We’ve sailed past most of them without a mention in this blog. Sydney has about eight teeth at this point. Honestly, I stopped counting. I still get nervous that she is going to choke to death on my watch, but I think she has enough choppers to chew her way to survival.

Verbally, she is ahead of the game. She repeats just about any word you emphasize for her and she recognizes familiar things and calls them by their name. She can’t say her own name – she actually thinks her name is “baby” and says that every time she sees a picture of herself. I guess that is better than monkey, which someone I know recently said her newborn now answers to.

I also don’t think she can make the “s” sound for Sydney. In fact, some of her words come out funny because she can’t make the sound. She can pronounce happy or apple, but chicka – her favorite toy – comes out ca-ca. Still, she syas a lot more words than others her age.

As far as motor skills go, she is behind. She is walking, but she toddles around like a drunken college student. She is unsteady on her legs and probably falls down about every five steps. I have never seen anyone hit their head so many times without getting a concussion. She could teach NFL players something. She definitely inherited her mother’s hard noggin.

Those were milestones we happily awaited. Now we are dealing with one I dread.  

We are probably starting late on this, but we are going to do away with the bottle. The doctor scared us the other day by saying Sydney “will need a root canal” if she keeps drinking from a bottle.

What kind of doctor tries to scare you like that? As new parents, we are compliant as overmedicated puppies. You tell us what is best for our child, we are all over it. No need to terrify.

I don’t think this is going to be an issue, except at night. As regular readers of this blog know, my daughter does not sleep through the night. She is up at least once, and often twice, every night. This has been going on for 15 months.

Sigh. 

Please spare the advice. More than once we have let her “cry it out.” Two hours or more later, she is still crying and not sleeping. She rants and raves like Donald Trump discussing the “birther” issue. We have found it much easier to give her a bottle; she is back asleep in 15 minutes. That means we are back to sleep in 20.

Getting her to drink from only sippy cups during the day should be easier; she already does this several times a day. But my nights are about to get even more frightful.

She falls asleep every night drinking her bottle and then has one or two more by morning. For months, we have been cutting her night-time milk with water. She gets a 50-50 mixture. (Imagine how that tastes.) So, I am convinced it is not the milk she needs. I think she likes the soothing nature of the bottle and it helps her go to sleep.

Of course, she did wake up the other night screaming “Milk!,” so I could be wrong.

I’m wrong about a lot of things when it comes to parenting. I incorrectly predicted she could sit in the middle of a bed without somehow rolling three feet and bouncing off. I was wrong that my child would somehow like me more than her mother. And I was certainly wrong about not draining the tub after every bath.

So maybe she does need the milk to get her through the night. Hell, I would like a steak sandwich to get me through the night. But just as daddy goes sandwich-less, Sydney is going to have to give up her milk.

We are going to do this on the weekend, so when we only get two hours of sleep, it will not impact the next day's work performance. 

Like I said, it is a milestone I am not looking forward to. I predict a lot less sleep in my future. But root canals are not good for kids, so it needs to happen.

Baby 2.0

I’m on the die-before-you-retire plan.

Anyone who really knows me, knows how much this depresses me. I am a man of leisure. I certainly look forward to a time when I can sleep until noon and play poker late into the night. Hell, I might even take up regular exercise when I retire because I will have so much free time on my hands.

But that when is now a lot more of an if.  I don’t see it happening.

I’m having another baby.

That means I will be 65 when my second – and last (I plan on getting the snip job!) – graduates high school. Then, I will have four years of college tuition to look forward to. Multiplied by 2.

I guess what I am saying is, if I was a betting man, I’d pony up to the window in Vegas and place my money on the chances of me dying before I retire.

But the truth is, I’d probably die a lot sooner without these kids in my life. Kids reinvigorate you. They give you a reason to live. I’m excited I have a second one on the way.

Sometime in mid-May of next year, little baby Gregg will arrive! He or she will blast into this world via c-section, just like sister Sydney.

Will it be a boy or a girl? Doesn’t matter. Last time, you will recall, I was 51 percent hoping for a boy. This time, I really am 50-50. My experience with a girl has been so positive, I would happily do it again.

Either way, I should find out in December. We already have names picked out for either gender. That’s better than last time, when we could only agree on girl names. By the way, I proposed no stripper names this time.

As I have stated many times in this blog, I never had a strong desire to have children. Brooke wanted two and I wanted zero. We compromised on two.

My fears are the same this time around as last time. I’ve done nothing for the last two months but obsess about a bigger house and adding an additional income stream. I’ve also wondered what would be the best line of work for someone who doesn’t want to be forced out before age 70.

I have zero energy now. How do I add another little Tasmanian devil to the mix? Sydney doesn’t even sleep through the night yet. Now comes another one who wants to party deep into the night, ala Lindsay Lohan? I don’t have enough money to go around now. How do I add another day care bill, a mound of diapers and 50-gallon drums of baby formula to my monthly tab? I have the patience of an angry bee now. How do I mix in another child who will spend nights tormenting me by sticking their hand in the VCR every five minutes, chewing electrical cords when I am not looking and pounding my computer keys while I am trying to check my fantasy league progress?

But what is different this time around is I know the reward. Having Sydney in my life has truly been the greatest experience of my 46 years. That smile can turn my day around in an instant. She does something silly every day that makes me laugh out loud. Her daily development provides a deep sense of interest and pride. I’m sure all of the same will occur with Baby Gregg # 2.

Plus, I know what to expect. When the baby does nothing but cry, sleep and poop for four months and has the same expression for me that he or she has for a brick wall, I will know that somewhere around the corner is coming that first hint of recognition of daddy and it will be accompanied by a smile that melts my heart.

In fact, this is my chance to get a kid who actually likes me. Sydney does nothing but call for mama and cuddle with mama 24/7. I’m as popular as Mel Gibson at a bat mitzvah with my own daughter. Maybe Baby Gregg #2 will have an affinity for daddy.

That is just one of the things that is going to be different this time around. I’m going to assert myself. No baby classes. No more taking the heat for not being excited enough. No nipple confusion. No $400 strollers. No letting the baby bounce off the bed.

I’ve learned some lessons.

This pregnancy is going to be all about me. When Brooke’s back hurts, mine is going to hurt more. When someone asks how she is feeling, I am going to blurt out my aches and pains. If there are any gifts to be doled out this time around, I am going to ask for something for my man cave.

I might even gain 50 pounds in sympathy weight. Oh wait…I did that last time.

I’m going to focus all the attention on me. The first pregnancy was for her. I’m going to enjoy this ride.

I better. For the next 22 years, I am going to work my rear end off, slaving decades past the issuance of my Golden Buckeye Card and AARP membership. It is going to be all about Sydney and her little brother or sister. I have to get them through college, or die trying.

A funny thing happened on the way to retirement…          

Daddy Screws Up, Version 2,652

OK, this is what happened:

Brooke had to pick up a friend from the airport. This left me in charge of bathing and putting Sydney to bed.

The normal routine is Brooke does the bathing and I read the bedtime stories and feed Sydney her bottle, after which, she usually falls asleep. On this night, I handled all three parts of the bedtime routine.

On the times I have handled the bath, I usually let her play for 20 minutes, then spend about five minutes cleaning her, then we are off for the stories. That was my plan this time, too.

Brooke threw me for a loop adding bubbles to the water (she prepared the bath before leaving). I don’t usually do bubbles, but, since they were in there, I figured I’d take advantage of it and let the bubbles self-clean Sydney. This would save me the five minutes of work at the end. The bubbles would clean Sydney while she was playing.

Now, while Sydney plays, I usually sit nearby scrolling my Ipod, setting my Fantasy Football lineups, reading the news of the day or playing Words with Friends. My job is to simply make sure she doesn’t drown. She loves bath time, so I let her play.

So I am scrolling and about 15 minutes into the bath, Sydney stands up. I immediately sit her back down and tell her “NO! We don’t stand in the tub.”

Sydney loves to get this kind of reaction from me. She thinks it is funny and it encourages her to again do whatever it is that drew the reaction.

So, a couple of minutes later, she stands up again. Same routine. I sit her down, tell her “NO” and go back to scrolling. A few minutes later, the same.

This time I tell her, “If you do that again, that is the end of your bath. We are getting out.”

Of course, she does it again two minutes later. I quickly whisked her up, threw her in a towel and walked her to her changing table.

End of bath.

I dried her off, put on her pajamas and read her a few stories. After her bottle, she was ready for bed.

Shortly after she fell asleep, my wife came home. She and her friend sat downstairs talking for a couple of hours and then came up for bed.

My wife goes in the bathroom and then comes running into our bedroom with a horrified look on her face.

“Did you see the tub??”

“Oh, sorry, I forgot to drain it. Sydney kept standing up and..”

“NO! There is poop in the bathtub! How long did you have her in there?”

“What? No, she didn’t poop in the tub. I was watching her and…”

“She pooped in the tub. There are three turds in there. It is disgusting. How could you not have noticed?”

“Well, there were bubbles and you can’t see below the bubbles and…”

“I can’t believe you. She is going to be sick from being in that water. You have to pay more attention. You are so non-observant when it comes to watching her. You have to be more observant.”

“Yes, dear.”

At this point, I was totally defeated and feeling like a horrible dad. How could I not have noticed something taking place three feet from me?

That’s the story. If letting her roll off the bed onto the floor wasn’t bad enough, my inattentiveness now has led to my daughter pooping in the tub and me leaving it there for three hours. While Brooke had a friend staying with us.

I’m sure my wife had a fun time explaining what an idiot her husband is.

Thank God Sydney didn’t decide to take a few swallows of bathwater, which she is sometimes apt to do.

Call me Daddy Disaster.

Despite my stereotypical ineptness, I really do love my daughter!

So, if you are used to playing Words With Friends with me, I’m afraid I will no longer be able to carry on a game between the hours of 8 p.m. and 10 p.m.

Sorry.   

Hide the Playboys, it's Time to Find a Babysitter

Let’s talk babysitting.

I have no idea how to pick one, how much to pay one or, most importantly, how to trust one.

I’ve recently been thinking about babysitting and that has me pondering how this world has changed. Babysitting, like everything else, has evolved over the past generation.  

I’m not saying the art of watching children has changed. If you were skilled in that in 1970, you are skilled in that now. Actually, if you were skilled in that in 1970, you might be dead now. Or at least using a walker to get around, and that would make it tough to be a good babysitter.

What I am talking about is what babysitting says about us as a society. Gone are the days of calling up grandma or the trusted neighbor down the street. We are much more mobile now and that makes it much more difficult to find a good babysitter.

I also want to clarify that I believe babysitting and child care to be two different things. Child care is something one does as a profession. I formerly sat on the board of 4C, the local child care education and referral agency, and am fairly knowledgeable about child care and brain development from birth to 3. You want a child care professional spending 10 hours a day, five days a week with your child, not a babysitter.

Child care professionals take this s--t seriously. This is a permanent job for them, not a temporary gig. It involves teaching and developing children, not just making sure they don’t set the house on fire.

It is when my child care provider has an emergency and needs the day off that I must turn to a babysitter.

In fact, that’s really what got me thinking about this. Our provider needed a day off to put her dog to sleep. Sidebar: This situation just about brings me to tears, and it is not even my dog.  I am a dog owner and lover. I barely knew this dog, but the plight of anyone having to put their dog down sends me spiraling. I know it is a choice I will have to make one day with my 9-year-old German Shepherd, Vegas, or my 8-year-old Weimaraner, Murphy, and I am sure I will be a blubbering mess when it happens.

So, my child care provider needed a day off. But that meant that either Brooke or I had to take off work. In fact, any time our provider has a day off, one of us is cashing in a vacation day.

That is the state of our society today. Thirty years ago, generations of families lived within the same town, if not on the same block. If you needed someone to temporarily watch your child, you had a half dozen people to choose from. A couple of grandmas, aunts, uncles, even a trusted neighbor.

But, over the past generation, society has become much more mobile. I ended up in Cincinnati because of a job and stayed because I liked the town. Brooke went to school here and stayed. Neither of us has family in this area. Mine is four hours away, hers is six.

When we need a babysitter, we are s—it out of luck. Whether it be an emergency day off from our child care provider, a wild Friday night on the town or even something as simple as having to work late – we don’t really have anyone to turn to.

I’m sure there are people who would do it for us. We have friends. But they work during the day, too. We know some people with children in their teens. But they go to school and have after-school activities.

I envy people whose families live in Cincinnati. They simply dial a number and say, “Mom, I have to work late tonight. Can you get Johnny from school today?” My wife and I have to play the game of “who has more important things going on at work?” Or even, “who will get in more trouble for taking off?”

Another sidebar: Work is important and all, but you know when a babysitter would really come in handy? Saturday and Sunday mornings. It would change my life. Not only could I catch up on all the sleep I miss during the week, but I could do a little guilt-free partying on Friday and Saturday nights because I would have someone to watch the Berenstein Bears with the little one in the morning.   

I’m not saying we couldn’t find a babysitter if we really put out the effort. But the truth is, I’m afraid to leave my child with someone. I work in the child protection field. I hear stories every day of terrible things happening to children. I don’t want Sydney falling down the basement steps because my babysitter was distracted by an intense texting conversation with her BFF over which country song best resembles her current love life. Nor do I want the husband of one of my wife’s friends, who might drink 13 beers to "wind down" at night, giving my daughter a hard shake because she is making too much noise.

In her 13 months, Sydney has been watched by my mom for a week while we went to a wedding in California, my mom for a night when we went to a local wedding, and by my wife’s friend for three hours while we cashed in an expiring Groupon for a Cajun dinner.  Other than grandma and Libby, and her child care provider, Amber, she has spent all of her time with either mom or dad.

I know this can’t last. Something will come up that we have to be at. Or want to be at. Like a Ryan Gosling movie. Or a Justin Bieber concert. I need to break down and find a babysitter. I’m going to have to trust someone.

I guess I’ll start with the kids of friends. But how do you know if someone is trustworthy? Every parent is going to say their kid can babysit. And there are a lot of kids who can do everything right in every other walk of life, but they might get stressed by a crying baby and give them a good shake to settle them down.

I guess I could interview them and background check them like I did my child care provider, but what 16-year-old can hold up to that kind of scrutiny? Besides, aren’t all kids a bit irresponsible? When I was that age, I would have considered myself more responsible than most, but I remember visiting my girlfriend while she was babysitting and attempting to get my groove on while the children slept in the nearby bedroom.

Lest you think I was a complete knucklehead, please be aware that I cared for my younger brother and sister after school when I was about 13. I cooked the hot dogs or mac and cheese or Hamburger Helper when mom worked late. The house did not burn down. No one got arrested. My sister did get hit by a car once, but I was right there loading her into the ambulance when it came. 

But that was a simpler time. When I was a kid, my mom could have left me with any of our neighbors and I would have been fine. But nowadays, you never know if your neighbor is a psychopath and you’ll come home to find your child cooking in the microwave.

A friend of mine is a teacher. He gets all his sitters from his pool of students. That’s bold. I’d be afraid they’d rummage through my personal affects and I would show up at school on Monday to rumors that I have a prized Playboy collection dating back to 1988.

Not that I do. (Wink, wink.)

If I do finally find a babysitter, how much do I pay them? I was talking to a guy the other day who said he pays $15 an hour. So if he and the wife go out for Happy Hour to closing time, or spend a Saturday night at a wedding, he’s spending $100 on child care, as well as what he spent taking the wife out or buying the wedding present.

That’s a little out of my public-employee pay range. Plus, that guy has three kids. I have one. I’m thinking maybe $8 an hour? Here’s where writing a blog comes in handy -- you tell me what the going rate is these days.

There is so much that goes into this babysitting decision. Who to pick, how much to pay, where to hide the Playboy collection….I long for a simpler time when my street was filled with relatives and trusted neighbors who longed for nothing more than to earn $2.50 an hour watching babies.

Massillon, Ohio, circa 1978, I’m coming home. Keep the light on for me.

Hide the Batteries or Sofia Vergara will be Speaking Spanish

My daughter – at the age of 1 – already has a cache of toys that could fill a corner of Toys-R-Us.

We are thinking about switching her middle name to Mattel.

Which one does she like best? Well, it is a tie between the television remote, her mom’s phone, her dad’s phone and her dad’s laptop.

That’s right. All that good money spent on toys and they come in a distant second place to anything that is not hers.

Her fascination goes beyond the shiny gadgets. She’d rather play with a photo album or a water bottle then her toys. Anything that she is not supposed to have is automatically something she wants, like a teen-age girl chasing the burn-out bad boys with juvenile delinquent records.

Is my kid the only kid like this?

It is frustrating with a capital F because I can sit her in front of this mountain of toys to play and instead she crawls over, grabs the remote and starts putting my TV into some sort of state that I cannot reverse, so that I end up watching Modern Family reruns in Spanish.

For awhile, my wife and I debated quitting our jobs and designing and manufacturing remote controls for children. They would look and act like the real thing, but have nothing to do with the television. We would trick the babies into thinking they were the real deal. We would make a mint.

Then my mom smartly said, “Why don’t you just take the batteries out?”

Out of the mouths of old fogeys...

So now, when Sydney insists on playing with the remote, the batteries come out. This is disappointing for her, because she has learned to look at the TV for changes when she starts pushing buttons.

How do kids learn such cause and effect at such a young age?

When I was a kid, we didn’t have remotes. In fact, I WAS the remote. I remember my dad yelling at me to come in from out in the yard and change the TV so he wouldn’t have to get off the couch and walk seven yards to the old black and white. Luckily, there were only four stations back then and I only had to stand there for a couple of minutes while he made a decision. Today, I’d turn for an hour as he decided between storage units, pawn shops and Real Housewives.

My daughter knows exactly what she is doing. When I have my laptop out, she stealthily crawls toward it, smiling all the way. She quietly pulls on the couch to get herself standing and then, not so subtly, begins to bang on my keyboard like a bongo drummer.

Then she looks right into my eyes and laughs. What you gonna do, dad?

She’s 1. I can tell her a hundred times “NO!” and it doesn’t register. She’s still in that delightful – for kids -- discipline-free age bracket.

We have learned to roll with it. If she is going to play with my phone, I try to put it on the ringtones setting or the pictures setting so that she is doing less harm. She loves to scroll through the pictures, delicately taking her index finger and moving them side to side. (Again, how do kids learn this stuff at such a young age???) I guess it is better than her calling 9-1-1.

One day, she called a reporter I had been dealing with through work. On a Saturday. Uggh.

My wife has started finding games on her I-Phone for Sydney to play. She likes to watch videos of Disney characters singing songs. A friend pointed out this app where a tom cat repeats everything you say. I can say “Sydney, don’t play with the phone!” and the tom cat will repeat it word-for-word. Sydney just giggles. Still, that is pretty sweet. I hope whoever invented that is a millionaire.

My wife and I would like an I-pad, but the truth is, we really shouldn’t spend the money right now. But, with all the games and things Sydney can play, it almost makes it impossible not to. It would at least give us our own gadgets back.

Maybe I can sell her toys on E-bay to pay for it.   

Control Freak and Daddy Not a Good Mix

I used to hate kids.

Well, I hated unruly kids. Ok, I actually hated the parents of unruly kids.

Now, I have sympathy for them.

In my previous life, it would not be unusual for me to visit a Skyline Chili by myself. I’d hunker in with my USA Today sports page and my five-way chili and look to lose myself for a half hour. Then, just as I was about to bite into that tasty cheesy-chili concoction, some kid would start wailing. Or start running around the restaurant. Or just be annoying in general.

This scenario played out in many ways in many places. It could be the seat next to me on an airplane. It could be the line at the post office. It could be the movie theater. It could even be my own house when some relative or friend brought their kids over.

One time, I was on vacation with a good buddy and his family. We went to a seafood restaurant and his 2-year-old proceeded to take every butter packet out of the big dish on the table and throw it under the table. One by freaking one. His parents acted like nothing was happening. I was incredulous.

As a former know-it-all, I would get extremely frustrated with the annoying behavior and blame the parent.

Shame on me.

Last night, I took my daughter out for her 1-year birthday. She loves macaroni and cheese and a nearby restaurant, the Keystone Grill, happens to specialize in that. We thought it would be nice for her.

She spent the first part of dinner opening the menu, paging through it and then throwing it down on the ground. Again and again.

She spent the rest of dinner eating macaroni and cheese with her fingers and dropping the majority of it on the ground. She was a cheesy mess when it was all said and done. Then, she topped dinner off by throwing her sippy cup on the ground. Over and over.

My wife and I basically ignored her behavior. We picked the cup up over and over. We picked the menu up over and over. Eventually we would take them away. Occasionally, we would say “No.” Sometimes, we tried to divert her attention to something else.

I’m sure people thought we were bad parents. What they didn’t realize is it could have been much worse. Take the cup or menu away, try to feed her with a spoon when all she wants to do is shove a fistful of macaroni in her mouth – these types of actions could lead to a crying meltdown.

The truth is, I have become immune to some of the bad actions of my 1-year-old. I overlook things as to not make them worse. 

One thing that I am starting to grasp is that kids of a young age do not have the ability to determine right or wrong and cannot be taught to be responsible for their actions. This is hard for a control freak lie me, but I am giving into this notion.

You ever try to reason with a 1-year-old? Sydney gets this look of consternation on her face like, “Dad, why are you talking to me in this tone?” Then she goes right about doing what she was doing in the first place.

She doesn’t understand sticking her face under water in the bathtub can kill her, how is she going to understand that throwing her sippy cup in the floor is a no-no?

Trying to "teach" her only makes it worse.

Dad: “Sydney, I am taking this sippy cup away because you keep throwing it on the ground.”

Sydney: "Huh? I'm 1. I have no idea what the words coming out of your mouth mean."

Tears. Wailing. Until she gets the sippy cup back. Then quiet, except for the occasional throwing of it.

So, as parents, we make a choice. I don’t mind bending over to pick up a sippy cup every now and then, I guess.   

Sydney is starting to get whiny. Especially for her mother.

Sidenote: Yeah, this hurts. Mom leaves the room, daughter cries. Dad tries to play with her, read to her, watch television with her, Sydney cries. Mom comes back into the room, Sydney quits crying. Dad realizes he is nothing but chopped liver and starts crying himself. End of sidenote.

So, when Sydney starts whining for her mom or crying for no really good reason, my inclination is to stop her annoying behavior. My attempts range from reasoning (Sydney, this is not how we act in this family. You can’t get what you want by crying.) to stating my case (Sydney, your mom is not the only person in the world. I am a good guy. Give me a chance!) to yelling (STOP CRYING! ARRGGGHHH!) to giving a soft tap on the butt to get her attention and telling her "NO!"

Sydney’s reaction to these various methods of control range from continuing the bad behavior, to increasing the bad behavior to laughing at me for thinking my soft tap on her behind would mean anything to her.

You can imagine how this plays with me. Especially in public. As I have said before, I do not like to be embarrassed and have all eyes on me. When Sydney gets going, I get flabbergasted and that makes the situation worse.

More than once, my wife has had to come to my rescue. She picks Sydney up and pulls her away as I sit wondering what the hell I am doing wrong as a parent.

Being a control freak and a dad to a toddler do not really mesh. One of my friends pointed out to me the other day that her teen-age son does not always, shall we say, do the right thing. Some of those screw ups have involved the police. She said this used to frustrate and mortify her because she felt it was her fault and a reflection of her as a parent. She would immediately dive in to help and get control of the situation so she would not look bad to her peers.

Now, she realizes he has his own personality quirks that have nothing to do with her parenting. He is not a clone of her, but his own individual. And, he can solve his own problems.

By the way, she has an older daughter who has rarely ever given her trouble. Don’t we all know families where one child is an angel and the other is devilish? You can’t have been a good parent to one and a bad parent to the other, right? So it really is more about the personality of the child as opposed to you as a parent.

Take it a GIANT step forward. Some kids grow up to be great successes in life, career, love, etc., but they have brothers or sisters who are criminals or drug addicts or unemployed or thrice divorced. Raised in the same environment, but drastically different. Nature wins over nurture.

Anyway, my friend got me thinking that the same logic applies to my 1-year-old. My daughter’s whininess, or even a public fit, are not indicative of my parenting. I do not have to be a control freak and immediately jump in and fix the situation.

At least that is what I am telling myself these days.  

This is not an excuse, mind you. This is a philosophy until Sydney gets old enough to truly know right from wrong and can understand consequences, punishment, etc. I don’t know what age that starts, but that is when the idea of discipline starts.

My brother, Little Dick, does a really good job with his 5-year-old. I’ve seen him in a restaurant and when the kid gets whiny, they go to the rest room to talk it out. He also effectively uses “time out.” The kid is well-behaved.   

Another friend of mine gets creative with the punishment. He has a young boy who likes to play video games. He becomes these “characters” in the video games. You can actually purchase the characters in real life; they are little toys. When the boy misbehaves, dad takes away a character and his son can never be that character again in the video game. That really sucks for a 4 year old.

That’s just a tool he uses. This guy has the best behaved young boys I have ever met. When he talks, they listen. It probably doesn’t hurt that he was a chopper pilot in Afghanistan for several years. When you are dealing with the chaos of WAR, a couple of unruly kids is nothing.

Other parents I know have kids who are old enough to know better who behave terribly. Those parents – well, they suck and I still hate them. They are giving us all a bad name.

But to those of you I maligned when you had your babies or 2 year olds or even 3 year olds at Skyline or on the airplane or in line at the post office, I have two words:

I’m sorry.