“My legs are tired!”

We’ve walked up and down this city, so I know he has the stamina. He may just want to be carried; can’t say I blame him. If there were a chance that I could yell out, “My legs are tired!” and someone would give me a piggyback ride to the subway station, I’d probably take it.

But I’m not buying CB’s complaint. I’m 35, I have a bad back, and CB’s wearing sensible shoes (with skulls on them, for some reason. Mental note: talk to CM about footwear purchasing decisions). So I whip out one of parents’ most effective weapons against complaining: The Empty Threat. 

In the “tired legs” scenario, I have several options for an effective Empty Threat. Good ones include:

We have to go! We’ll just leave you here and pick you up later then! As we learned in Home Alone 2, being a kid alone in NYC sounds fun at first, but eventually is unfulfilling and downright scary.

Okay, we’ll leave you here and have fun without you! This compounds the scary prospect of being alone in NYC with missing the revelry taking place at the trip’s destination (the bank).

Well, I guess we’ll just spend the night here. I don’t want to sleep on this cold, dirty sidewalk. Do YOU? I like this one better because it dials back the possibility of abandonment. If CB chooses wrong, we’d face the miserable situation together. But it would still be miserable.

To avoid inflammatory comments and visits from Child Services, I’ll clarify that we unconditionally love our children and WE WOULD NEVER DO ANY OF THESE. They are “empty threats” that carry no substance. But boy do they work.

Here are some others that we’ve found to be effective:

No computer games for ONE WEEK! This sounds good in theory…until CB is pleading for attention while CM battles the devastation of an exploded diaper. Save me, iPad; you’re our only hope.

STOP or else I’ll throw this toy away! Imagining his favorite Lightning McQueen wedged next to an exploded diaper will stop any kid in his tracks. However, we’d have to buy another car to diminish the emotional scarring, and we’re cheap.

That’s it– NO college for you! After visiting our old stomping grounds, the University of Florida, I’m sure CB dreams of being a CMOC (Cool Man on Campus). But we could NEVER prevent the opportunity for him to take part in higher education, for him to discover himself and dollar drafts, for us to spend tens of thousands on a philosophy degree. Actually…

+ + +

Cool Boy, the first time you read this post, you’ll probably be mad at me. We were just doing what was best for you, keeping you from causing harm to yourself, others, or our home.

And the second time you read this post, you’ll probably looking for ideas for the Cool Grandkids. You’re welcome.

This has been my mantra over the last couple of weeks, mostly whispered through a clenched jaw and possibly bulging eyes. Cool Boy has engaged in his most rebellious stage yet, and I’m constantly reminding myself of the proper responses.

Cool Dad, after the 10th "Can I PLEASE just play a computer game?!"

Another thing I repeat to myself is, “How did this happen?” Are we somehow responsible for this sudden shift in behavior? Surely it has nothing to do with hiring that Freddy Krueger to surprise the kids for Halloween. 

Actually, I’m sure that the shift wasn’t all that sudden. And we knew that it was inevitable. CB is four and a half now, and he’s his own little guy with feelings and opinions on what he likes and doesn’t like to do.

My frustrations with his behavior are his own fault, you know. I wouldn’t get so annoyed if he weren’t such a cool, well-behaved boy to begin with. I’m consistently amazed at how quietly he can sit through various events and timeshare sales pitches. He won the Goodness Award at kids church. He cleans his own room and offers to help with chores. And he’s a loving big bro to Cool Newbie, almost never pushing or hitting him.

I’m so used to his good behavior that anything contradictory to it is an affront to me. These are the kinds of things I’m talking about:

• Occupy Cool Home. More than ever, CB protests when we ask him to do something, whether it’s with, “I don’t want to,” “Can I PLEASE just (some other action),” or simply “NO.” He’ll even protest things that we know he wants to do, like getting ready to go to the park.
• Badger badger badger. He repetitively asks for something despite being told “No” the first time.
• Grblfshht. Maybe he’s trying to speak Newbie’s language, but he has spells of making guttural grunting sounds. He likes to put his fingers and shirt collars in his mouth, too. Gross.
• Say what? This is way nitpicky, but he used to say, “Yes?” or “Yes, Daddy?” when I called his name. Now, there’s a lot more of just “What?”

I know, I know; it’s not bad at all. He could be a lot worse. It’s much like a #firstworldproblem, to quote the Twitter meme of complaining about something trivial when you actually have it really good.

I fight getting angry and raising my voice. But when he cracks a smile when I’m lecturing him, something inside of me ignites like hitting a barrel of gunpowder with a sledgehammer. (Gallagher, NOOO!!!)

As I’ve put more thought and prayer into responding to his misbehaviors, I think it’s getting better. Here’s what I try to remember when Cool Boy acts up – not a list of how to discipline children, but what I tell myself to stay cool.

• Compose thyself. I dislike the feeling of losing control. In work situations, I’ve been upset at people but never lashed out or said any biting remarks. I must remember that whether it’s in public or at home, having an outburst is a very uncool thing to do.
• Get down to his level. I don’t do this often because A) I’m lazy and only like to bend down to pick up fallen pieces of brownie B) I like the sense of towering over someone (which doesn’t happen often). Still, I need to do it so that I can…
• Look him in the eyes. Even as I type this, my heart warms thinking about my Cool Baby’s Boy’s big brown eyes, the same ones I stared into while cradling him in my arms at North Florida Hospital four and a half years ago. I think there’s something in my eye…(sniff)
• Speak clearly and firmly. I need to choose my words with purpose. While I might be composed, I’m still frustrated, and I’m the type who can talk myself back into anger. Just ask Cool Mum. Actually, don’t. My words need to be loving, but clear and serious.

And something I’ve found to be helpful after the fact:

• Recap. I like to discuss the situation later, when emotions are long-gone. I don’t want to beat a dead horse, but give a gentle reminder in the context of a normal conversation.

This checklist works for me, and hopefully writing this has ingrained it further into my head. Cool Boy will continue to have his moments as he discovers who he is. Even when it’s tough, I pray that I’ll grow and learn alongside him.

Let’s say I can walk in a room and see CB jumping on his bed. For a lot of parents, this might not be a big deal. For us, we have nightmares of monkeys falling off and bumping their heads.

So, I would quickly admonish CB:

No jumping on the bed…You can fall off and knock your head!

And by God’s grace, CB will obey. But recently I noticed that I was setting us up for future troubles. It’s semantics, but when I say

You can fall off and knock your head!

a grammar-savvy CB might think to himself, “Oh, I can?! Sweet!” *leap* *mild concussion*

I think it’s going to be a while before CB will take advantage of the dual meanings of the word ‘can’ – “an event that might happen” vs. “I am giving you permission to” – but kids develop faster than you realize.

It’s the same situation with the word ‘may’:

You may knock your head!

Meaning 1: Explaining the possibility that the subject will knock his/her head
Meaning 2: The affirmative response to the question “May I knock my head?”

So, I think my best friend in all of this is the word “might.” It seems to express possibility without the risk of being twisted to grant permission.

You might knock your head!
You might get sick!
You might reveal that Daddy hides cookies under his pillow!

Although Merriam-Webster defines ‘might’ as “used in auxiliary function to express permission, liberty, probability, possibility in the past,” I don’t see how it can viewed in a permission-granting light.

What do you think? May ‘might’ serve better than ‘can’ or ‘may’, or can ‘might’ be twisted to my dismay? [and we have a winner for the most confusing blog question ever!]

Have you been celebrating National Etiquette Week as feverishly as we have? All week long, we’ve kept our elbows off the table and our feet out of the refrigerator. We’ve coughed into the crooks of our arms. I’ve helped little old ladies cross streets. And I’d help them back across if they were going the other way to begin with.

But despite the week’s festivities, our kids still struggle with the notion of etiquette. Cool Baby has been known to explore his nostrils, camcorder notwithstanding. And sometimes, Cool Newbie will just sit there and go poo-poo in his pants! With company over!

Seriously, this week I’ve tried to guide Cool Baby into chewing with his mouth closed. I love how food tastes, but I’m not such a fan of how it sounds, with the crunching and the wet smacking. With Cool Mum’s guidance, I’ve tried to not nag CB about it, lest my efforts backfire. So I’ve offered gentle reminders like, “Remember, we chew with our mouths closed.” CB would respond by closing his mouth and chewing with a smile. I look away, the smacking would return. I look up, mouth shut and a giggle. My earnest attempt to teach etiquette has turned into a game.

For now, I’m going to leave well enough alone and trust him to follow our example. Like I’ve said, he wants to be just like me. Hopefully, he’ll follow the righteous path and chomp with lips together. If not, a potential job as a Food Network host could seriously be in question. I can see it now:

SERVER: And the spaghetti carbonara.
COOL BABY (grown up): And here we have the delectable signature dish at La Carbonara. The cream, the pearl onions, the hand-cranked pasta. This is what I’m talking about.
(twirls pasta)
(takes a bite)
(chews)
(fellow diners evacuate)

Oh well, cross one more career off CB’s list.

This week, Google released a new commercial for Chrome, their web browser. If you haven’t seen it, I don’t want to spoil it, so please spend 92 seconds and give it a view below.

I love the idea of emailing your kiddos as they’re growing up so they can read them when they’re older. I love it so much that I’ve been doing it for about two years now!

For Cool Baby’s second birthday, I thought it would be a good idea to snag a domain with his name so that he could use it later, when he wanted to establish his own identity. Unfortunately, someone – possible soulless domain squattter or evil dictator – already had noahcorpus.com, so I grabbed noahcorpus.me.

After getting the domain name, I set up an email address through Google Apps, so that it’s now a Gmail account. Since then, I’ve been periodically emailing Cool Baby little updates, photos, and videos of our life so far.

I confess that as life has twisted and turned since the birth of Cool Newbie, I’ve slacked on my one-way email correspondence with CB. Recently, I’ve been compelled to make emailing him a regular habit. I hope that seeing this Chrome commercial will secure that commitment on my part.

After Newbie was born, I scored the .com for his name, but I still need to set up his email address. Maybe his anger about lacking an email address is what wakes him up throughout the night!

If you haven’t bought your kids’ domain names, I highly encourage you to do so, unless your last name is Corpus, and you named your kids after ours in some sort of homage. Even if you don’t set up a website or email address for them now, it’ll be good to have it (and keep it out of the hands of evil dictators). If you need some help with whole process of buying a domain name for your kid, let me know!

With that bit of Web geeky advice, I have a couple of emails to write.

Cool Baby coolly replied, “I don’t like candy.”

Woo-hoo! Our Knowing Is Thriving, Keeping Away Treats, or KITKAT, program remains intact! However, the biggest threat to keeping CB off candy came where you’d least expect it: home. And it was all my fault.

During two egg hunts that day, CB collected quite a trove of Easter eggs. Instead of tossing the sweets, Cool Mum kindly put them aside for me. She presented me with a sugar stash that consisted of a mini Reese’s peanut butter cup, a caramel-laden Rolo, and a variety of Jelly Belly jellybeans. Approximately 35 minutes later, which was the duration of lunch, I dove in.

Last week, CM said that CB told her that he wants to be “just like Daddy.” Heart, melted. When CM asked him why, he explained that it’s “because he drives.” I’ll take it.

With great power and the adulation of your children comes great responsibility. I absentmindedly walked by CB as I was feasting on an open egg of Jelly Bellys. He asked me, “Daddy, do you like candy?”

“Umm…”

Uh-oh. A ‘yes’ would’ve kickstarted a desire for candy in CB. A ‘no’ would be lying. I don’t LOVE candy, but it’s nice to have around.

As I stood there trying to defuse the situation, CM jumped in: ”I played a trick on Daddy! I filled his Easter egg with peas!”

I gratefully played along. “Oh yeah… Haha, Mommy tricked me!” And we all laughed.

I hid the jellybean-stuffed egg, while CM asked, “What’s that smell? Did Micah do a poo-poo?”

CD: I don’t know. Here, check. (picks up Newbie and puts his bum up to her nose)
CM: Yup. OK, go change it, Daddy!
CD: But I need to finish my peas!

I changed the diaper with no complaints, because CM’s quick thinking saved us from a much bigger mess.

I once saw a man walking with a snake around his neck. And a couple of times, I saw a dude with a cat on his head–good for keeping New York rats out of your hair (which the snake could handle, too). But last week, I finally witnessed a sight that moved me to blog about it.

Across from me on the subway, a guy had the oddest thing on his shoulder: his teenage son’s head. Son was leaning over while Dad checked his Blackberry. Sometimes Dad would put his arm around the kid or pat his leg. The kid looked a little sad or tired, so maybe Dad was just trying to be a comforter. The boy looked about 12 to me, but I have a hard time judging age since The Cool Fam is a bunch of shorties with baby faces.

This stuck out to me because I’ve been wondering lately how old is too old for a son to be huggy with his dad. Almost every day, I have cuddle time with Cool Baby, who’s about to turn 4. It’s usually in the morning, and I ask him how he slept and what dreams he had in the night. Then I’ll make him breakfast, which is either grilled flank steak with Eggs Benedict and mesclun or oatmeal with blueberries, whichever feels easier.

Cuddle time is a great way for us to bond first thing in the morning. However, I’ve been wondering how long it will last. Do 5-year-old boys still cuddle with Daddy? What about 10-year-olds?

And beyond cuddling, what about hugs in general? We’re a very huggy family, and I don’t look forward to the day when I can’t give my first baby a squeeze without being pushed away or looked at weird by onlookers and his college professors.

Jason Mayo of the blog Out-Numbered has a post called Muscle Memory where he talks about how his parents still kiss him as a greeting. I look forward to feeling like his dad when the Cool Boys grow up.

Whatever the protocol is, I won’t divert from routine. Cuddle time will go on as regularly scheduled. Otherwise, when will we get classic moments like this one from a couple of Fridays ago?

And when cuddle time with CB reaches its natural end, I’ll still have Newbie to give squeezes for a couple of years. And after Newbie, CM will have to absorb my full onslaught of hugs. Lucky girl.

photo: michaelaw

While some of my friends enjoyed the rite of passage, I hated it. I remember having that sinking feeling when one of my teeth started to get a little loose. I would spend all day in school rocking it back and forth with my tongue. I guess it looked like I was chewing Red Man — which probably helped me fit in better as a the new kid in our country town.

And then came that fateful day when the tooth was ready to bail. It would dangle by that fleshy cord, and I could spin it and twist it and bop it. When I built up the courage, I would give it a good pull, and it would come loose with a bloody snap. Ew.

At least my suffering was mitigated by a visit from the tooth fairy, which netted me a sweet shiny quarter. So, I was pretty shocked my friend told me what the going rate for a tooth is today: FIVE DOLLARS?! These tooth-losing kids make Donald Trump look like, well… me!

According to one of those online inflation calculators that we all love to play with, the inflation rate during the 25-year period since I lost my baby teeth is 102%. If kiddos are pulling in a cool fiver for every tooth these days, they’re profiting from a 1,900% inflation rate!

And think of the poor Tooth Fairy! To get an idea of how her expenses have ballooned, think that gas was $1.25/gallon in 1986. With her 1,900% increase in payouts, that’s like us paying $23.75/gallon for gas now! Her teeth holding sacks must be long worn out and held together with duct tape.

Even more shocking is that I just remembered that there is no Tooth Fairy! I’M the one paying out that $5.00 per tooth! Well, I’ve learned that in marital and family communications, the use of the words ‘always’ and ‘never’ are highly discouraged, so as to promote understanding and I will NEVER pay the Cool Kids $5.00 a tooth. If I wanted teeth that badly, I could probably find a dentist on Craigslist selling ‘em by the bucketful for a lot less.

Honestly, I don’t know if we’ll bother with the whole Tooth Fairy mythology when Cool Baby starts losing his teeth anyway. It’s not that I’m not willing to part with a quarter every now and then. The Tooth Fairy just doesn’t sound very cool. If we’re gonna tell a lie, might as well make it a cool one.

CB: Daddy, I wonder if my tooth is still under my pillow.
CD: Go ahead and check!
CB: (checks) It’s gone! And there’s a quarter! Who took my tooth and left me a quarter? The Tooth Fairy?
CD: No, even cooler…

JAMES FRANCO!

Actually, if CB’s teeth are that big when he gets older, then I’ll have worse problems than leaving a few bucks under his pillow. But you get the picture.

What do you think: How much should kids get for losing a tooth?

CD: My name is Noah.
CB: No! Your name is Daddy!

CD: What color is this apple? Blue?
CB: It’s not blue! It’s red!

My revolutionary homeschooling method was just starting to come together when I had an unfavorable epiphany: Cool Baby must think I’m a complete idiot.

He probably gets annoyed when I suggest for the eighth time that he has 12 toes. And he must worry about his genetic wiring when I ask him if Mommy is a boy. I don’t EVEN want to know what he’s thinking during our debates on the planetary status of Pluto.

Looking ahead, another side effect might be that Cool Baby becomes a harshly disagreeable person. This could play out to have dire consequences in the workplace.

CO-WORKER: Noah, what was that client’s name? Alice?
CB: No! It’s Susan!

BOSS: John, did I send you those TPS reports?
CB: You didn’t send them to John! You sent them to ME!

CEO: I’m very pleased with the 14% increase in sales at this branch!
CB: NO!! THE INCREASE WAS 13%!! (cries)

Despite these possible outcomes, I’ll go on with our little correcting game. After all, I’d hate to eat a blue apple by mistake.

Do you play this kind of correcting game with kids?

Robin recently commented that she’s looking for great baby products for raising kids in small spaces. Here are my 3 must-haves!

1. Pack ‘n Play – Before we had children, Cool Dad and I would have referred to this thing as a playpen. Somewhere along the line we realized that term has been phased out in favor of the less pig-like “play yard.” Oh the Glory of the Pack ‘n Play! There’s nothing it can’t do!

The PNP usually comes with a bassinet attachment and a changing table attachment, in addition to its usual play yard capabilities. It goes from room to room, unlike a standard crib, because it is narrow enough to fit through most doorways. It keeps your kid out of trouble and gives them a place to sleep whether you are at home or on a trip, folding nicely into its own storage bag. The mesh sides allow for ventilation and also prevent big old bruises on your baby’s head once he starts rolling, crawling around, and standing up (wooden crib rails+small wobbly head=ouch).

And check this out…there is a new PNP available that includes a detachable rocking baby seat too!

2. A few good baby carriers – I used the Moby Wrap on daily trips to the park with Cool Newbie, while holding the hand of Cool Baby. CN always slept while CB played. Perfect! Now that CN is older, we use the Ergo daily. He still sleeps in it. A lot. But, that is a story for another post. In essence, I couldn’t handle the space usage of a baby swing, so I became the baby swing by wearing these carriers!

3. Feeding seat instead of high chair – This straps to your existing dinner chair, assuming it’s large enough and is not an IKEA Jeff like ours. We used this one for CB back in Florida.