mccullochblog

What You Need to Know about Parenting a Two-Year-Old Boy

In my long and storied history as a blogger, I have occasionally penned a few words of advice to fellow would-be adults navigating their way through life's impenetrable forests and perrilous canyons.

It is in this spirit that I have decided to pass on the great wisdom I have acquired in the past four months, during which time I have been the parent of a two-year-old boy. Obviously, I plan to continue being the parent of a two-year-old boy for another eight months, but this seemed a good time to get a few things off my chest.

These passed-on insights are intended to fill the void that exists between what veteran parents already know, and what parenting books (the ones that focus mostly on tips for dealing with a dry cough or with potty training) don't tell you.

So, if you are a parent of a boy, standing peering into the abyss of his third year, here's what you need to know about what lies ahead:

1. Two-year-old boys are better negotiators than the US State Department. It took two US Presidents and countless diplomats 444 days to free the Iranian hostages. I think a two-year-old could have beaten them into submission in a weekend. "I just want ONE" is William's latest plea bargain. One? How could I refuse? Of course, if I do refuse (a cookie, a TV show, whatever) William will instantaneusly burst into tears and roll around on the floor in utter despondency. You thought Meryl Streep was good? You ain't seen nothing yet. Yes, parents, you can stand firm, but if you don't give a little, you too will feel like a hostage, trapped in your own home.
2. Two-year-old boys are better escape artists than Harry Houdini. I was in the back garden one Sunday when I heard William's voice shouting: "Daddy? Where are you?" It sounded like he was outside, but that was impossible as he was firmly contained in the house, or so I thought. Actually, he had climbed up onto my La-Z-Boy, unlocked the window and was about to throw himself headfirst out onto the veranda. That was when I decided to fit locks to the windows. Shortly after that, I did the same to the back doors. A little while later, Emma took to taping William into his diapers during nap time, in a vain attempt to contain his bodily fluids during nap times, even if the boy himself could no longer be sure to be contained. Failed, failed and failed again. Two-year-old boys are like blue whales: they are not meant to be contained. William can now escape any diaper (no matter how much tape) and any crib, room or abode in about the time it takes for you to make a sandwich. Some people say a leash is a step too far. Wait until it's your turn.
3. Two-year-old boys are more curious than Albert Einstein."What is THAT noise?" I asked myself, as a deep rumbling echoed throughout the house one morning before I set off for work. William had discovered the dials on the back of the sub-woofer. A few more seconds, and I suspect cracks would have appeared in the walls. "What is he doing NOW?" I asked as a strange electrical whir came from the utility room on another day. "He's discovered the dog door" came the reply from Emma. We don't have a dog, nor had we used the magnetically-triggered dog door in the two years we'd been living in the house, until William somehow manage to combine a magnet from one of his toy trains with the sensor, and "Whurrrrrrrr...." off it went. I have since nailed a board over the exit part of that contraption (See 2) but I know it's only a matter of time before some other escape plot is hatched.
4. Two-year-old boys grow faster than bamboo. You know when you see those British tourists in San Francisco wearing trousers that are curiously not quite long enough to connect with their socks at the ankles? That's what your two-year-old will look like before you know it. I swear if you could get them to stand still for long enough against one of those height charts, you could actually watch them grow. William seems to need new shoes every month, and overnight his t-shirts get dangerously close to mimicking that other awful 80s British fashion statement: the t-shirt cropped above the navel.
5. Two-year-old boys have a greater propensity for destruction than any bull in any china shop. On the eve of my becoming a father, my good friend Ian advised that I should set my alarm clock to go off at three-hour intervals during the night and burn all my money, to prepare myself for being a parent. He might also have added that I should walk around the house with a hammer smashing it ruthlessly against anything of value. William has carved deep gouges into our wooden floors, dragged elegant lamps to their doom with a casual tug, gnawed away at furniture with his teeth and simply hurled various other items against walls until they cease to function. I should add that much of this destruction occurs not in fits of rage, but during the normal course of being curious, as described in (3). Two-year-old boys toss die cast metal trains against large windows in much the same way as we adults might playfully lob a ball of paper into a trash can. You have been warned.

There is more to tell of course. For example, I could tell you about Friday evening, when William located and turned on a faucet in a pub beer garden sending a cascade of water flooding across the feet of numerous patrons and their childen (and very nearly the backside of an acquaintance) but I sense that you, dear reader, already have the general idea.

Happy parenting!

Ta-daaaa!

William has a new trick. He likes to hide in the laundry basket and emerge with a big shout of "ta-daaa!" 

Okay, so this time around, he skipped the ta-daaa! but it was still a great way to end a weary day on Friday!

 

Being Parents and Being Happy (What's Your Secret?).

Apparently, the secret to being a happy adult is to not have kids. 

Seriously, according to a New York Magazine article titled "Why Parents Hate Parenting", (about which I've been meaning to blog for a while) having children is proven to NOT make you happier, and having more than one child is pretty much guaranteed to make you less happy.

If you don't have time to read it, let me summarize:

Parenting used to be rewarding because it was productive (we put our kids to work on the farm).

Now, parenting is a chore because instead of having the kids milk the cows, we have to feed them and pay for them to go to university. 

Oh, and because we're all having kids later in life, we've all grown used to our independence and so feel somehow trapped by the ties of our children. Previous generations mostly had kids as soon as they left home and so never knew this freedom.

Finally, though we spend more time with our children than parents did in 1975, we all still feel stressed at the feeling that we don't spend enough time with them, especially men.

So, all of this compelled me to write something about the secrets of successful parenting.

And then I got writer's block. Or more specifically, I got "who-the-hell-am-I-to-preach-about-this-subject" block.

So I talked to Emma about it.

After initially alarming her by bringing up the subject of happiness at all, we came to a swift conclusion that we were generally pretty happy, and so I asked the question: "What would be the one thing that would make you a happier parent?"

She thought about it, then asked me the same question without offering an answer.

Then we both thought about it. For ages.

Then (we were driving to Yosemite at the time) we simultaneously blurted out the same answer: "I'd be happier if I could get more sleep!"

So there you have it: our answer to overcoming the challenges of parenting. And this weekend we are practicing exactly that. Or at least, one of us is.

Emma and a bunch of girlfriends have gone to Tahoe to imbibe copiously and sleep extensively. This - based on the booze-fueled text message I received last night - appears to indeed be making Emma happier! 

For my part, I'm doing my best to distract myself from the sleep deprivation (which I'm sure is doubled for single parents) by cycling, sailing and baseball-ing my way through the weekend. 

My final advice on the subject is that you do the same sometime soon!

 

 

 

 

Benny, Bing Crosby and Barber Shop Philosophy

 I had my hair cut by Benny yesterday. He works at the Exchange barber shop in San Francisco. 

It's one of the last remaining barber shops where the staff still talk about politics, philosophy and football; where the words "Paul Mitchell" or "volumizing" are never uttered, and where the average age of the barber is 67, or thereabouts.

Anyway, there I was exchanging greetings with Benny. "How are you?" I asked. "Doing fine" he replied, when he said something that brought the cordiailty of the moment to a shuddering halt (at least, it did in my mind).

"An old man told me once that if you don't expect much from life, you'll never be disappointed," Benny said.

I let the words land.

But then I couldn't resist a dissenting reply.

"You know," I said, "that's just about the total opposite of my philosophy."

"I expect an awful lot from life and then spend my time making sure that life lives up to my expectations."

"Well, you probably get a lot more disappointments that way." Benny added, politely but with the confidence of a man who had lived for three-score-years-and-ten, with a few pleasant surprises along the way.

Anyway, after that we talked about the time Bing Crosby had an apartment at the Benjamin Franklin Hotel in San Mateo, near where Benny used to work. And we talked about the 1989 earthquake and the fact that people in Santa Cruz felt it about 20 seconds before people in San Mateo.

But when I woke up this morning, I couldn't get the philosophy thing out of my head, and now I feel compelled to ask you to weigh in...hence the new poll. 

So what do you reckon: "expect little...be surprised", or "aim high, and strive to fulfill"?