25 Mar

Dad and Buried Posted in discipline 2 comments

Good Cop/Bad Cop

I’m used to my son preferring my wife. I’m okay with it. It has its perks. Besides, young boys often favor their mothers. It’s biology.

It’s not like my kid and I aren’t close. Yesterday I pretended to eat his face and this morning he told me he doesn’t like it when I breathe. We’re buds!

But as we navigate the threenage wasteland, Mom and Buried and I often have to resort to some good cop/bad cop parenting, which is pretty typical. Unfortunately I’m usually the bad cop.

No wonder he likes Mommy better.

The Happiness Problem

My son turned three and half the other day. My wife threw him a little party.

Few things seem so obviously tailor-made for a Dad and Buried rant as the absurdity of half-birthdays. Unfortunately, when my wife got excited about Detective Munch’s mini-milestone, I found myself swept up in half-birthday fever myself, against my better judgment.

Despite my reservations – about spoiling the kid; about rewarding him for nothing; about the fact that his terrible threes haven’t exactly been his behavioral high-point so why the fuck should he get an extra made-up holiday right smack in the middle of it? – I helped celebrate it. Enthusiastically. We gave him a toy truck and a cupcake!

I think I’m part of the problem. I sang “Happy half-birthday” to him, for Christ’s sake.

Read more about The Happiness Problem …

14 Mar

Dad and Buried Posted in Fear 12 comments

Dad of No Trades

This morning Detective Munch handed me an old iPod he’d been playing with and asked me to fix it. I told him I couldn’t, and he wanted to know why.

“You fix my trains!”
“Sometimes.”
“Why can’t you fix this?”

This doesn’t offend me; he’s only three. Plus, iPods aren’t exactly the easiest devices to dissect and MacGyver back to life. But “fixing” his trains mostly involves replacing the batteries, and the truth is he could ask me to fix almost anything and I’d be at a loss. I’m not a handy man.

A common male stereotype is that men can fix things. Kids expect dads to fix things. But – unless you count breakfast, which, don’t, because I can’t even make decent pancakes – I can’t fix shit.

Am I failing my son?

The Sick Day Scramble

It’s terrible when your kid gets sick. Especially when he barely knows it.

My son is three and a half, and this winter he’s had a few tough colds. The coughing, the sore throat, the eternally running nose (although he’s had one of those since he was born, so that’s more of a curse than a health issue), all have reared their heads at one time or another, much to our dismay. Of course, being a resilient, happy-go-lucky kind of guy, Detective Munch barely seems to notice his own symptoms.

Unfortunately, his preschool does notice them. His teachers are like dogs; they can smell sickness. So he’s forced to stay home. And that is a huge hassle.

Read more about The Sick Day Scramble …

13 Feb

Dad and Buried Posted in Future One comment

Valentine’s Nay

Valentine’s Day approaches.

Countless couples and would-be couples are, as we speak, scrambling to find romantic ways to mark the occasion. It’s stressful and time-consuming and expensive and, for those without sweethearts, frustrating and pathetic and why does God hate me?!

We all know that in its modern-day incarnation, Valentine’s Day is a holiday propped up by candy companies and card companies and restaurants and Yankee Candle, and yet even those of us who reject the concept often end up making some kind of concession to it, if only so our significant others don’t feel left out when the sheep in the office get flowers and they don’t.

Even the least cynical among us can see through the heart-shaped nonsense to the heartless industry behind it. So why do we get our kids involved?

Dad and Buried

Category: Learning

Good Cop/Bad Cop

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The Happiness Problem

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Dad of No Trades

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The Sick Day Scramble

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Valentine’s Nay

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