Most toddlers are adorable and mine is no exception. Someone that adorable aught to have no difficulty giving you a hug or sitting next to you through their favorite movie, right? Wrong. Dead wrong. He’ll give you a hug, but it’s going to be on his terms. He may give you an unsolicited running hug where he approaches out of nowhere and grabs your legs. You may want to protect certain body parts, but the sentiment is sure sweet. Those hugs are also typically over as quick as they began. But take that running hug as a sign to pick him up at your own risk. He may give you a hug if you are extremely lucky. Otherwise, he may scream bloody murder until you put him back down on the ground. My point is this. I frequently want to pick my son up and give him a hug– and I’m not typically a very huggy person. I never know if a social situation calls for a hug and hesitating for one second can make things outright awkward. But something about your own kids brings it out. Toddlers are as buoyantly energetic as they are cute. Maybe you try to cut them off from the 20th lap around the kitchen and living room by picking them up to give them a hug. You’ll wish you hadn’t. You pick them up and body parts flail through the air. Nothing is intentional but you could get smacked in the head. Kicked in the unmentionables. Elbowed in the chest. Anything is possible. Everything is possible. I’m pretty sure it’s all happened at least one hundred times. This is why I got really excited when Jamie showed enough patience to have a book read to him. For months and months he’d want to get down the second we opened one up. It’s usually the only time he’ll sit with you for an extended period of time –probably because we do this right before bed. That’s also about the only time of day when we typically get a good hug picking him up. It’s all a gamble. You win some and you really, really lose some. But it’s still worth the effort. If you like what you read, please vote for me by clicking the Top Daddy Blog Link below or sharing on social media....

“Ashes, ashes we all fall down!” Jamie treated me to an impromptu rendition of Ring around the Rosie while driving home from grandma and grandpas recently. When he got to the end line he let his body go limp in the car seat, with a sense of finality. When he does this inside now, he falls to the ground with this line, acting it out. At some point preceding the initial rendition, I’m sure he heard the song and it popped into his mind because silence is the mortal enemy of any 2-year-old. He would lose at the quiet game every time, so there is no point in trying that gem yet. Pretty much every word uttered out of a 2-year-old’s mouth comes from something he has heard before. A lot of what he says makes him sound savvy and smart. A lot of what he says is hilariously out of context. For example, I began changing his diaper the other day when he told me “It’s hot. No touchy touchy,” while shaking his finger. He was telling his dad to keep out. But he probably got it from someone trying to keep him away from the stove. He also repeated the President’s name as Bock O-Gamma over and over for a considerable amount of time. I’m still not sure he’s learned that one the right way. I must utter the phrase “I wonder where he got that?” while shaking my head and smiling at least 10 times a day. There are the things that make me laugh inside our own home, that I hope with every fiber of my body are never repeated outside my home. (For a 2-year-old he has an extremely keen sense of anatomy.) Concepts such as time are difficult for Jamie to understand, but he’s got an excellent memory. He can recite the alphabet, his address, what he did that day, or remind us seemingly out of nowhere that his aunt and uncle live in California. Yet when we tell him “Mommy and daddy love you,” before he goes to bed, he repeats the phrase verbatim back to us. It is a reminder that at this stage his world is built on repetition. I know that once he is a bit older and his vocabulary further expands I am in for some creatively phrased questions. I know that the quiet game is only reserved for extreme circumstances and could likely remain a futile strategy. I remember driving with him in the car seat and almost forgetting that he was there because he was so quiet. He’s no longer shy about sharing what is on his mind. If you like what you read, please vote for...

When you look at your own 2-year-old it is easy to get caught up in how big he or she is. They used to be a tiny infant, and they became a tiny person seemingly overnight. But that doesn’t mean he or she is a logical being ready to understand commands or complete complicated word problems. Who am I kidding? I can’t complete complicated word problems…  Anyway…in the course of a day, any parent of a toddler utilizes a vocabulary that makes them feel better, but there is zero chance the kid will understand. I’m not talking about Shakespearean English, Harvard English, or anything else highly academic. I’m talking about simple words in a basic vocabulary that may as well be highly academic. Heck, they may as well be in a foreign language because the best you’re going to get is a blank stare when you use them. Here is my incomplete list of words and phrases rendered completely and utterly useless when directed at a 2-year-old, and why: No – If they want to they want to. “No” isn’t going to stop anybody. Wait – Wait for what? Not going to happen. It’s about the “now.”  Maybe – Yes or no. That’s really all they want to know.  Have some patience – This is even more useless than telling them to wait.  Slow down – They only know one speed.  Tomorrow – The only time-related concept they understand is “now.”  Later – Now or never.  Be careful – Live dangerously. Take chances. Go to sleep – Sleep is for the weak.  Eat your broccoli – It’s green.  Don’t do that – This phrase only peeks the curiosity.  You know they are going to do it anyway, they are going to move ahead when you tell them to wait, and telling them to slow down is like making them change the oil on your car –it ain’t going to happen. They’ll be able to figure out how to watch a YouTube video on changing the car oil, but in what seems like a bonding moment they won’t feel the least bit confident in how to change it, either. What utterly useless words or phrases are uttered in your house? You’ll know them when you hear them because of how ridiculous they sound coming out of your mouth. If you like what you read, please vote for me by clicking the Top Daddy Blog Link below or sharing on social media....

There are only two types of people in this world–the people who can keep track of every sock while doing the laundry, and the people who don’t have a prayer. I desperately wish I was the type of person who could keep track. But socks have a free pass to come and go as they please in our house on Sunday, when I do the laundry. They have this revolving door thing going on. Dress socks and workout socks tend to stray further, protesting their monogamous destinies, while evading their matched significant other. These are the things that occupy my mind. If I have such a rocky relationship with adult socks, how am I supposed to look at my son’s toddler socks on laundry day? He’s 2 now, and so much bigger than he was as an infant. Yet I feel like his socks still reign in at about a quarter of the size of their adult counterparts. How in the @$!@#$@#! am I supposed to be able to keep track of something so &^%*&^% small??? A lot of people look at a baby or toddler sock and see a reminder of how cute and adorable the child is. While my child is cute and adorable, this is not at all what I see looking at a toddler sock. I see something made to lose. They are made to get stuck inside other articles of toddler bedding and clothing, or get stuck on the side of the dryer as you empty the load. They are made to drop while the load is in transport, or lose between couch cushions. The idea that two socks of the same likeness and pattern could end up findable as laundry is being folded would constitute a Sunday miracle. This is the type of thing that makes me irritable and frustrated, and might turn my hair gray tomorrow. Toddler socks are so small that on the off chance you find a match, it’s a strain on your fine motor skills to actually fold them. Piecing them together requires the same precision as threading a needle. So how do I respond? I don’t. I do about 90 percent of our laundry, my wife does about 99 percent of Jamie’s folding. I might still be working on last week’s folding if that weren’t the case. When I fold adult laundry (which actually can feel somewhat peaceful and relaxing), progress is visible. Hang up a shirt, and see the pile dwindle in size. When I unearth toddler socks the pile is still there, seemingly the same size, and laughing hysterically at me. No matter how many toddler socks, pants or shirts I fold, the pile still feels about the same size....

Entertaining a 2-year-old can be a risky position to be in. Do things wrong and the results can backfire with a crying fit or temper tantrum, leaving you in a more compromised position than you were in before. But it’s also important to visualize what success might look like. If he’s too enthralled with whatever new game you are playing, you’ll never stop hearing the word “Again?” The lesson out of all of this is to not do anything once that you aren’t willing to do all day for the entertainment of your kid. HAVE FUN! Sometimes you are lucky enough that they scrape their own entertainment together in the strangest ways. The other day I ended up on the driveway with Jamie while he played in his toy car. He didn’t want me to push him. He didn’t want to use his legs to move forward. He wanted sit down in it. Then he wanted to get out, so he climbed out. He stood up. And he closed the door. Then he climbed in and sat back down. Closed the door. Rinse. Repeat. Over and over and over and over again. I watched this happen with what I now understand to be flawed thinking. How could this POSSIBLY BE FUN!!!??? But apparently it was. “Jamie do you want to blow bubbles?” “No.” “Jamie do you want to play with chalk?” “No.” “Jamie, can I push you in the car?” “NOOOOOOO!!!!!” OK then. Open the door. Close the door. Stand up. Sit down. Rinse. Repeat. Having a toddler in the house necessitates speeding up in a lot of ways. If he darts into the street you better be ready to catch him. If he walks away at a crowded summer festival you better be ready to hustle. But when he wants to do the same thing over and over again while playing in the driveway it’s time to slow down. A toy car is nothing new to you, the parent. It is nothing special. As a matter of fact, I have two real ones in the garage. But everything is new to him, hence the need to pick the most basic action he could, and repeat. Watching him get in and out of his car that many times in a given window felt a lot like watching the paint dry, or the grass grow. But that doesn’t mean it was boring to him. Sometimes I don’t always need to be the entertainment for him, and I don’t mean that in any kind of arrogant way. Sometimes he can just be. What is old to me is new to him. It’s his turn to discover. If you like what you read,...

Sometimes I am giddy about the stuff that I love and selfishly, I want my son to love it too. I am looking forward to the days of great literature and movie dramas. But right now, I am excited to introduce him to new music. Jamie loves his tunes and it can be an amazing thing to watch – it’s just not always the music I would hope to share with him that he loves. When he’s in the right mood he may start dancing without anything playing at all. Other times it may be a song in a commercial, or even a jingle. He also predictably loves a lot of the songs that are played on the children’s shows. Most recently, he has been infatuated with a toy that plays a few notes from Farmer in the Dell – but it’s just a few notes. So when those notes are played he stands up, hops on his feet and flails his arms in the air. Then the music stops, there is a look of awful surprise on his face, and he reaches down to replay the toy again. This can go on for half an hour at a time, listening to the same 20 seconds of the song. Given the excitement of the Grateful Dead concert over the last weekend, I thought it might be time to introduce my 2-year-old to jam band music. I played St. Stephen for him. Nothing. Sugar Magnolia. Same. The way Jamie dances with a total disregard for who might be watching would fit in perfectly at a Grateful Dead show. But it just didn’t offer the right kind of beat to set him moving. I can usually tell what he likes as I play different music in the car. He’ll bob with the songs that gain his approval. One album we’re in total agreement over is The Talking Heads’ Stop Making Sense. He’ll bob his head and dance to the majority of the songs on that album. David Byrne’s work always hits me too. I haven’t gotten much of a reaction yet from Led Zeppelin, the Who, or the Rolling Stones. But there will be more attempts. I have a basement full of CDs and vinyl that I’m looking to share. If you like what you read, please vote for me by clicking the Top Daddy Blog Link below or sharing on social media....