Toddler Tales: An Older Dad Survives the Raising of Young Children in Modern America

by Lee B. Mulder

covered with bicycle chain grease... let me check the log." She runs down the list with her fingernail, the one with the chemical curl. She stifles that pesky new cough. I think to myself, "Maybe I should get her safety goggles for Christmas."

  "....I won't be long," she sings.

  I left her there, rounded up the kids from the neighborhood and took them to McDonalds for dinner. We did baths, books, prayers, hugs. I wandered off to bed with a book and a cup of tea.

  "Honey," she called out of the silence from the bottom of the stairs. Momentarily startled, I slopped a tiny drip of tea onto my pajamas. "Are you in bed?"

  "Yes, dear," I said, trying to brush away the stain.

  "I'll be up in a minute."

  "Okay," I said, running to the john to flush the tea. That done, I quickly jumped into bed and turned out the light knowing full well if she sees this stain, I'm up all night.

  When, at last, she slid between the sheets, she took my trembling hand and whispered lovingly, "Don't worry. I can get it out."

  My God, now she can HEAR them too?

  Working at Home

  I'm trying to concentrate. I really am. But every ten seconds, the voice of Barney the Dinosaur says something warm and reassuring from beneath my desk.

  ("I love you.") This is just one of those hazards of working at home.

  They say that, very soon, over 50% of Americans will be working out of their homes. To me, that means that 50% of Americans will be either stark raving mad, they will be living alone, or they will be working like cloistered nuns in soundproof cells somewhere in the depths of the basement. ("Will you come play with me?").

  The problem, of course, is that most of us do not have a separate wing on the estate from which to conduct business. Some of us have carved out the corner of a bedroom as "the office." Others have claimed the kitchen. Others a spare bedroom. Wherever it is, even behind the thick, double-locked door in the basement, the kids know about it. ("Let's go to the park") They'll bring their friends home and play screaming games within fifty feet of your phone. They'll play keep- away with your mail. They'll send the dog in to sniff out your very important and embarrassingly late proposal and then chew it to shreds.

  Oh, you'll try to work around them. ("Why don't you get a real job?") Maybe you'll work real fast while they're at school, or preschool, or while mom does her aerobics. You'll make the important calls while silence reigns. But no matter how you time those calls, you won't get through. The caller will just buzz you back. And when he does... the very moment he does... it's as if your loudest child had purchased the ESP option from the phone company, s/he will burst in on you with "Daddy, daddy, daddy!" immediately after you've expressed your most professional "hello."

  "... Unh, let me put you on hold for a second," you tell your very important caller, "my other phone's ringing." You tap the HOLD button ("The check's in the mail") and politely ask your child to vacate to another state, explaining in no uncertain terms: you're on the PHONE! You glare, but words and funny faces don't cut it these days. With slightly less tact, you say, "Get outa here now or your mom will tie you up and feed you nothing but Fletcher's Castoria for a week." They smirk at you, thinking you are kidding, and do not move. They are then surprised to find themselves involuntarily leaving the room assisted by the side of your foot swung in a very sympathetic, politically correct, non-abusive kick to the pants. "I'm back, George, thanks for waiting."

  ("I'm from the government and I'm here to help you. Hyuh, hyuh, huyh, hyuh") That little laugh of Barney's is driving me nuts. Where was I?

  Oh, yes. It doesn't take long for your wife to find you when you're working at home, either. "Honey, I'm just going out for a few things," she says, strolling in with a small black box. "Can you listen for the baby? Here's the monitor." How can you say no? I can't help but wonder if she's taken her passport along with the checkbook as she skips out the door humming a tune. If she's not back in an hour, I'll check the flights to Brazil. ("Give me five bucks and I'll shut up") How do you turn this thing off? Barney, you're getting on my nerves. ("Hyuh, hyuh, huyh, hyuh").

  Well, she did return, anxious to be back before the baby awoke. Not for my sake, you understand, as she had been shopping for birthday goodies and didn't want the little one to see. One of the items was this Barney doll. Just as she squeezed his adorable purple paw to show me how he could say "I love you," a wake-up cry came over the monitor. She stuffed the bag of toys under my desk. "Don't let her see this stuff," came the command. The moment she left the room, I heard:

  ("Where's my five bucks?")

  No chance, pal. Cool it or I'll yank your batteries. ("I'll spit on you.")

  Why don't you be a nice little stuffed dinosaur and snuggle up against the bumble ball? (""). There was no answer. But ever so faintly, I heard a little tap, tap, tap on my door. I know it is the baby. "Da-a-a-d-dy?" she says in her sweetest little voice. I have work to do, but can't help myself. I let her in and she crawled into my lap, reaching for the keyboard. Suddenly I realized that if Barney speaks, the surprise gifts will be found and I will be the one heading to Brazil to avoid the wrath of a wife whose husband messed up her child's birthday party. I deftly turn off the word processor, turn on the answering machine and scoop the child into my arms saying only "The office is closed for today, honey."

  ("Let's be friends")

  "That was me, baby," I replied to eyes widened in bright recognition. "See? I used my Barney voice... Let's be free-ends, let's be free- ends. Hyuh, hyuh, hyuh, hyuh." She was fooled and I closed the door behind me.

  Tomorrow, I think I'll telecommute from Starbuck's.

  Potty Training

  If you've been to the grocery store on Saturday morning, you've seen The Dance. This is a phenomenon experienced by young children being introduced to the common ritual of civilization known as using the toilet.

  It starts with the child walking in feigned oblivion down the aisle with his or her knees pressed together. This is not an easy thing to do and it often attracts mom's attention.

  "Do you have to go potty?" mom whispers, stating the obvious, but seeking consensus without involving strangers.

  "No," the child says emphatically, refusing to acknowledge that anything is out of the ordinary.

  A few feet farther down the aisle, however, denial turns to pain and The Dance advances to the jumping stage, where the child bounces like a pogo stick between the canned fruit and the mixed nuts. Both hands go between the legs. The eyes cross. The lips seal. The body begins to overheat inside its winter coat and snow pants while the mind flashes neon alerts inside the tiny skull... "for God's sake, don't have an ACCIDENT!"

  "Do you have to go now?" mom asks nonchalantly in her best Didn't-I-Ask-You-This-Question- Already momvoice. The sweating, grimacing, bouncing child at this point often, grudgingly agrees and both mother and child whisk to the nearest bathroom.

  Moms, of course, well know the shortest route to the bathroom in every familiar store. If The Dance happens to occur while shopping in unfamiliar territory, moms learn to effectively beg sales clerks for use of the in-store john. You can often see them on their knees, speaking quickly and pointing to children caught in the rigors of The Dance. The intensity of the begging is directly proportional to the amount of juice junior drank since the last potty break and the amount of elapsed time between then and now. You sense the power in the hands of the clerk and watch them wrestle with the retailer's quandary... "Do I allow this person from the... how shall I say it... public... to taint the hygiene of my toilet seat? Or do I reach out to help a fellow human being in need?"

  Scientific surveys have shown that if the clerks are moms, a wry, knowing, sisterly smirk comes over their faces and permission is granted. Likewise, if the clerks are males, permission is also granted, for males have no hygiene gene in their DNA and don't worry about toilet seats. With female non-moms, however, your chances are 80-20 against; the risk of rampant toilet-seat disease is simply too great.

  There really isn
't any need to worry, though, because always-ready moms carry a paper towels, cleansers, antibacterial spray, deodorant stick-ups, and several potent religious objects to thoroughly detoxify whatever toilet seat comes along.

  Pediatricians tell us the average age for young children to become potty trained is 33 months. We, of course, convinced that our young man was advanced beyond the mere average child, bought a potty seat at age 18 months. He tore the box apart and played at making orange juice with the big cup inside. When we showed him what the seat was for, he actually used it on two occasions and was amazed that he could eject fluid from his body and survive.

  In his conscious mind, of course, he wondered why we would ever want him to pee into a cup so that we could then empty it into the toilet. Wasn't it just a lot easier to change a diaper? Parents can be so dumb! This thought was obviously so logical to my son that he decided to take control of the situation and stopped using the potty seat. He didn't venture near it again until he was... 33 months old.

  It was then that his friend Jordan came over to play one day and showed off his big-boy underwear. My son stared in awe as his friend, only two weeks older than he, proudly dropped his drawers to show off his Snoopy training pants. No diaper for Jordan, he was a big boy now. William decided immediately that he wanted to be a big boy too.

  "Okay," mom said, finding the training pants she bought a year ago. "But you'll have to tell us when you need to go so you don't have an ACCIDENT."

  With widened eyes, the young man's unformed mind could only imagine what it would be like to have an ACCIDENT. Would your insides spill out onto the floor where monsters could eat them up? Would your body empty and fall limp like a balloon running out of air? If you made a spot on the carpet, would mom rub your nose in it and then chain you out in the yard like she did to Rex the dog? Or worse?

  "One other thing," mom said, completing the ground rules. "You'll need to let me know if you need to go tinkle or poo."

  "Okay," he said, "Tinkle or poo. Tinkle or poo." And so he was off to play, feeling very grown up at walking around without a rattling diaper, and enjoying the feel of thick cotton pants where plastic used to be. From time to time, he'd drop his drawers just to see if he could do it himself.

  Then he learned The Dance.

  "Mommy, Mommy! Need to go potty," he would say, running into the room with knees squeezed together.

  By the time he started to jump, mom would instantly abandon her laundry and say, "Okay, okay. Tinkle or poo."

  "Tinkle or poo," he said back. "Yes, which?"

  "Tinkle... I thinkle," he said.

  Mom and William together would rush to the bathroom, drop the drawers and position him on the big toilet seat. He hung onto the seat with white-knuckled hands as though Titan rocket boosters were about to send him into orbit. He stared intently into the abyss between his legs and willed something to happen.

  From time to time, the stream would shoot out between the seat and toilet bowl and wet the pants bunched down around his ankles. "No, no, Son," mom said. "You need to use one hand to point your tinkle- shooter down." And soon, he learned to hang onto the seat with one hand and aim with the other. The term "tinkle shooter" became a fixture of neighborhood jargon, and the little girls all wondered jealously why they didn't have anything to aim when they went to the bathroom.

  Later, we'd teach William to stand on a stool and "make bubbles" in the potty like dad, but for now, we are happy he's not filling diapers all day long.

  We do need to talk him into a diaper for overnight. It's just too soon to expect him to have the control to last eight to ten hours without an awesome ACCIDENT.

  I walked into the house the other night and heard what sounded like story time coming out of the powder room. A quick peek around the corner revealed mom sitting on the floor with a lap full of books and indeed, reading to the young man sitting on the potty. He was bent double, hunched over, with elbows on the seat and his chin cradled in his hands. I crept away silently to not disturb the scene. Within minutes, William came screaming joyously out of the bathroom with his pants still down around his ankles. "Daddy, daddy, I went poo!!" To the accompaniment of the flushing toilet, I told my son just how proud I was of him.

  First tinkle, now poo. Can full civilization be far away?

  Oh, To Find A Babysitter

  There comes a time for every set of parents of a two year-old when they look at each other, each trying to focus on the other, trying to place just where it was they saw that person before. So familiar but so long ago. "Hey," it dawns suddenly. "It's You. We live together." Maybe, just maybe it's time to get away from the kids. The thought tickles them both until reality sets in... "We need a babysitter," they solemnly groan in unison.

  The babysitting phenomenon in America will make you crazy two ways. First, how do you find a sitter that you're willing to let inside your house? And second, how do you know what really will happen when you walk out the door?

  The first place to look for a sitter is in your neighborhood. Of course you trust the children of your friends. But by the time you've had this idea, everyone else has done the same and the three girls age 12 to 14 are booked for the next year and are auctioning off slots for the following year. I know of one family that was able to negotiate babysitter time only when the parents threw in the extra inducement of allowing her dad to join her on the job so that he could watch a basketball game on TV.

  (However, when he arrived, the youngster of the house was involved with watching The Little Mermaid. Undaunted, dad and daughter worked a clever scam whereby Dad would divert little Dennis's attention while the daughter fast-forwarded the video. Whenever Dennis turned around, there was Ariel. But suddenly, the movie was over and it was bedtime. He trudged obediently up the stairs to the roar of a feisty basketball crowd)

  Stunned that so many people you thought you knew so well really have planned ahead, the severity of the problem begins to sink in. You begin to widen your search radius. First you ask people at church, then friends of friends, then your hairdresser, then the checkout lady at the grocery story, then the bag boy. The network begins to hum and, eventually, the phone rings.

  "Hi, I'm Stacy? I'm a friend of Mrs. Hubbub's at the Piggly Wiggly? Um, I'm like available for sitting?" You talk for awhile and get earnest assurances that she's not a felon, does not use drugs and has experience with children because she has five younger brothers and sisters, all still living. Yes, she lives five counties away, but that's okay, you'll pick her up at six.

  Your sense of success is tarnished with the fear of the unknown, so when the big night comes, mom sends dad out at 5:30 with explicit instructions:

  1. Meet her parents. Look for signs of disease or brutality.

  2. Glance inside the house. Are there bugs or cobwebs?

  3. Check out their yard. Any rusting car bodies? Beer cans?

  4. Check out the street in front of the house. Any skid marks? Harley hogs? Any horny, slobbering, older BOYS hanging around?

  Dad does as he is told and returns with both the babysitter and a signed trustworthiness certificate. Mom ignores dad's detailed report and begins a lighthearted interrogation under a bare bulb in the kitchen. She ultimately introduces Stacy to her responsibility for the evening, now well numbed by videobabble, and then leads her through the details of the task at hand.

  "Plenty of soda in the fridge. Help yourself. He likes milk before bedtime, but he drinks it downstairs. Usually gets three books before lights out. The light in the fish tank stays on. The closet lights stay on. TV is there. Help yourself to a video. Here's the number where we'll be. I'll call you later. Here's the number of our neighbors if you have an emergency. Here's police, fire, furnace man, power rodder, electrician, roofer, chimney sweep, gardener and the village sniggler. Got it? Good luck. We shouldn't be later than midnight. Bye."

  Now it's time to go out and have some fun. But this is the hard part because there's always a question tugging at your subconscious, "Wha
t's REALLY going on in our house while we're OUT HERE?"

  For the paranoid and the neurotic, that is, the majority of normal parents, the process begins innocently enough. "Do you think Stacy is big enough to wrestle our little dumpling into his bed?"

  "I'm sure it'll be fine, dear, she looks big enough to me.”

  “You think she'll remember to do everything he likes?...read him books? Have a snack? Not stay up too late?"

  "I'm sure she'll remember, dear, she looks smart enough to me." This wise, calming assurance allows mom and dad to get into the theater.

  "Do you think he's in bed yet?" the wife whispers to the husband.

  "No, I'm sure he's set the house on fire and has rammed the fireplace poker through Stacy's budding chest. Now can we watch the movie?" The look he gets tells him we cannot now watch the movie. He hands her a quarter. "If you want to find out how things are going, call home."

  "No, she'll think I'm a paranoid neurotic.”

  “So what, you are a paranoid neurotic."

  "I'll give her a chance to get him into bed. Then I'll call."

  "Okay. Watch the movie."

  "Okay," she says, nibbling nervously at the popcorn cup. Fifteen minutes later, she leans over. "I can't stand it anymore. I'll be back."

  And soon, she is back, breathless. "There's no answer." They stare at each other for a tense instant. Then, in unison, declare "We're outa here."

  It's ten minutes to the house. As the car screeches to a halt in the driveway, there are no telltale signs of visitors. The street is eerily quiet. They enter the house making an appropriate amount of noise only to find Stacy sound asleep on her schoolbooks to the accompaniment of a prattling TV sitcom. Dad signals for a stealthy retreat. Back in the car, he offers to buy his best girl a piece of pie at the local Big Boy. She accepts.

  In two hours, they return home renewed, having talked in adult words and laughed at their paranoia. Stacy gets her eight dollars an hour for sleeping and a long ride home.

  At last, tucked into bed, dad says, "It sure was nice to get out for awhile."

  Mom replies, "I like Stacy. Let's use her again."

  One Way to Cope

  "People, we have a new member of our group," the leader said. He nodded to the man in the suit knitting his fingers nervously in his lap.

  The lean, gaunt-faced fellow, maybe forty years old, stood up from his place in the circle and addressed the gathering with downcast eyes: "Hi, I'm Tom."

  "Hi, Tom," the congregation replied. "I am a teleholic."

  "Tell us about it, Tom," the unanimous voice said.

  "It's the kids," he began. "I have a hard time dealing with my kids." He took a deep breath to steady himself. "I was OK. I remember when I was OK. I went to work in the morning like a normal guy, I came home at night,