“Hey Jamie. If you go pee in the potty you can wear Mickey Mouse underwear.” “Daddy?” “Yea, buddy.” “Will you wear Mickey Mouse underwear too?” As a parent, I’d like to think there are no limits to the things I would do for my 2-year-old son. But that’s just something we say. Those limits are there. They are important. My kid is giving me reasons I didn’t know existed to be anxious about his potty training. There’s been a lot of talk of potty training around this house again lately. We spend a freaking fortune on diapers. I am looking forward to not having to do that anymore (though I’m sure that money will go to something else). Getting this one behind us will be a relief. All that said, I am looking forward to the physical act of potty training about as much as I look forward to watching Jimmy Clausen play backup quarterback for the Chicago Bears – which is to say not very much. There will be kicking and whining and screaming. And I can’t even begin to predict how Jamie will react. The kid has the capability of hitting notes that put the neighbors’ China at risk. He knows how to employ his temper tantrums. It’s time. He can tell us when he needs a diaper change. He sometimes hides when he poops. He’s ready, but he’s stubborn. We’re trying to ease him into the idea, but there is resistance. “Jamie do you want to go to school with the other big boys? Then you’ll need to go potty in the toilet.” “Do you want to wear Mickey Mouse underwear? Well, Mickey Mouse doesn’t like getting wet.” None of this has really caught on. Our casual attempts at potty training have led to accidents around the house. The $%$^%t is getting real. It’s on. Soon. Kind of. And I really, really, really don’t want to be here for it. But that’s not an option, I’ve been told. All I know is no matter how bad this gets, no matter how desperate we become for our desired results, I think about all the things we’d do for our kids. And I am thankful there are limits. If you like what you read, please vote for me by clicking the Top Daddy Blog Link below or sharing on social media....

When it comes to bedtime, or any other ritual, a 2-year-old is slave to routine. Almost anything can be fun when it comes to a little bit of anticipation. It turns the most mundane tasks into a game. It helps that we have a 2-year-old who is a walking giggle factory. Sometimes we try to play it up, making him laugh at any turn possible. This has led to a few unique rituals, such as the family hug, right before bedtime. I’ll go in for the element of surprise, blindsiding Jamie as he thinks he’s receiving a routine goodnight hug from his mother. Now he asks for them nearly every night. One night, probably horsing around, we started flying Jamie into his bed like an airplane, versus simply placing him in bed. It is another ritual that wins us smiles and giggles, instead of dread as we place him in bed, and leave the room. He asks for that nearly every night as well. From these rituals to language, a toddler’s whole world is built on repetition. Before we walk out of his room, we utter the phrase: “Mommy and daddy love you.” Instead of “I love you too,” he repeats back exactly what we say: “Mommy and daddy love you.” He doesn’t understand the shift in meaning. He does the same thing when we ask him how he is doing. The conversation usually goes something like this: Dad: “How are you doing?” Jamie: “How are you doing?” Dad: “When someone says ‘How are you doing?’ you can say ‘Good,’ OK? Jamie: “OK.” Dad: “How are you doing?” Jamie: “How are you doing?” So, some things still need a little bit of work. Eventually we’ll break off from repetition to original responses, or concepts. But not yet. Sometimes I wonder why both his mother and I go in nightly to put him to bed. It’s the end of the day, so no 2-year-old is consistently in a tolerable frame of mind. There can easily be crying, tantruming, or general resistance to anything his parents are trying to accomplish. With a million things going on around the house, double-teaming the bedtime routine doesn’t feel efficient, and it’s easy to want a break. I don’t want to create an unrealistic image of what parenting is actually like. Believe me, at all other parts of the day, when one of us needs a break, we take it. It can get loud, it can get obnoxious, and it can get overwhelming. We walk away (when it’s feasible), and we come back (slightly) recharged. But for whatever reason, we both take part in that bedtime ritual, no matter how drained we are. I think...

I’ve always operated on the assumption that somewhere on the DNA helix rested the sarcasm gene. A scientist could point to its native region and say: “This is the part of your DNA structure that tells us if you are a pleasure, or a pain in the ass to be around. It’s something that is passed down from generation to generation. Kind of like hair, or eye color.” (This scientist would have a remarkably pedestrian dialect for an advanced education, but you know…) I believed that my grandpa likely passed his sarcasm to my dad, and my dad lovingly gave it to me. It’s my duty to treat this family hand-me-down as if it were a nice relic, such as a piece of furniture or a watch. It’s my duty to keep it traveling to a new generation. Apparently it is not passed on quite the way I imagined. Time with the sarcastic is a strong requirement in honing your interpretation skills. Another way to say it – sarcasm is learned, not inherited. Yet another way to say it is toddlers will follow your words, and not your inflection. I feel oddly disappointed at this revelation. Much to Jamie’s detriment, both Meg and I lean toward the sarcastic side. We recently found ourselves scrambling to put together a bag of Jamie’s stuff before we all left the house for a cookout with some friends. “I go too?” Jamie asked, with genuine concern. I wish I could say that my restraint was due to me taking the high ground here. Who am I kidding? No I don’t. Meg just simply beat me to this one. “No kid. Daddy is going. I’m going. Captain is going. You’re staying here,” she told him. If the sarcasm gene were real, surely it would be coded with some natural ability to decipher when people are joking, but sadly this is not the case. He would understand what a ridiculous (and dangerous) idea it would be to leave him home alone. We would have all been OK, and had a good laugh at this point. “NOOOO I WANT TO GO TOOOOOO!!!” He insisted. The smile turned upside down and tears were being conjured up as he worked to convince us of the urgency to the situation. Jamie took mommy at her word, which in this instance was a dangerous thing to do. Genetic or learned – the fact remains we have a long-standing tradition in this family that spans back several generations. We clearly have work to do. If you like what you read, please vote for me by clicking the Top Daddy Blog Link below or sharing on social media....

“BEATLES MUSIC!!” he cried loudly from the back seat. No, I’m not talking about a one-time teenybopper on his way to a concert at Shea Stadium in New York. I’m talking about my 2-year-old son on a recent car ride home, and his newfound musical obsessions. I have to say, I’m becoming more pleased with his tiny hipster sensibilities. He can move to A Hard Day’s Night quite nicely. And if there ever was a boy band I’d endorse, the Beatles would be a fine choice. Jamie’s even got the haircut to feign solidarity. Right now he just likes to move to the beat. Soon enough I’ll introduce him to the think pieces on Magical Mystery Tour and Sgt. Pepper’s. I’ve already written about the input I intended to have on my son – the kind of idealized stuff most first time parents likely feel, and then it all goes out the window by 2. For instance, a little piece of me died when I realized he could point out SpongeBob. Then you realize you just have to let it g…uhm nevermind. Eventually you start to see the victories take root and they make you smile. He starts to show interests in your interests, and it creates moments that just make you smile. Sure, I’ve got the soundtrack to Frozen, Mickey Mouse Club House, and every other cartoon to contend with, but that’s a challenge I can accept. I’m willing to sprinkle culture over the top. A few weeks ago I came across the Onion article Cool Dad Raising Daughter on Media that will Put Her Entirely Out of Touch With Her Generation. I laughed because the story featured a dad giving his daughter a Talking Heads album – one of the first bands that Jamie started dancing to (He’s a big fan of Take Me to the River). When I saw him bouncing to a Talking Heads song being played as exit music for a news show I was watching, I realized there was a foundation I could work with. I would love if my son learned how to play an instrument when he’s older, but for now I just want to introduce him to as much new music, movies and books as possible, to lay the foundation for cultural literacy. Maybe next up we can trade episodes of Mickey Mouse Club House for the Prisoner, or Silverstein for Camus. I’ll leave it up to you to determine whether I’m joking. One piece of parenting advice I remember receiving is to raise the type of person you’d want to grab a beer with when he’s older. Maybe I’m starting that process about 19 years early. But I do want...

Growing up I had GI Joe, He-Man and Star Wars action figures. I flew them around in shoes, played with them in their castles, and took them on missions wherever they were needed. Who knew those things were so much the rage, if I kept them in their original packaging, they probably could have paid for my college tuition? Heck, possibly my retirement? But hey, that’s another blog post. My action hero phase probably didn’t last as long as some kids’. My demand is not the reason those things became collectors’ items. I began playing with LEGOS, and collecting baseball cards. Soon I gave up baseball cards when I discovered the transformative power of music. Before I knew it, I was traveling in the adult world. You meet a woman, you marry, and eventually you learn what having an actual decorating style looks like. Apparently you reach a stage in life when it’s no longer appropriate to have pictures of Jim Morrison adorning your living room walls, no matter how much you liked Road House Blues. But hey, trees and landscapes are aesthetically pleasing, too. Eventually you become a parent, and something magical happens. It’s the circle of life. That “adult” decorating style goes out the window, or at least gets overrun, and it becomes acceptable for function to outrank style. I’m not talking about the Jim Morrison posters (those stay put away, or at least displayed in a far more discrete location), I’m talking about the resurgence of toys in your life again. Now, sometimes I think about the ways it sucks to be a grownup. There are bills to pay and chores to do. Then I think about the fact that a key feature to our front room is the toy basketball hoop and racetrack. I have two options for what to think about this. I can blaze on with my “adult” decorating style, and not accept anything other than functional furniture, or pictures of trees. Or, I can act like Tom Hanks in Big. Play with it all, and accept everything! Jamie’s not much of an action figure kid either, at least not yet. I don’t need to fly GI Joes around. But I like having Jamie cook for me in his toy kitchen. I also work from home, and sometimes when I get stuck on a project it’s nice to take a couple free throws, or run a car down a racetrack. Now all I need is a life-size keyboard and to learn how to play it with my feet. When you feel like Tom Hanks in Big, the world can’t be all that bad. If you like what you read, please vote for me...

“Dad. Dad. Dad.” I feel the back of my leg being tugged on and pressed by tiny little digits. “What is it Jamie?” “What’s that?” he asks, pointing. “That’s the dog.” A few seconds pass… “Why do you keep asking if you already know the answer?” “I don’t know.” As the parent of a 2-year-old, I must have some version of the above conversation at least 100 times a day. After the first 99 times, repetitive, obvious questions become as painful as a back alley colonoscopy. I’ve written about my chronic impatience before, and in moments like this it rears its head. He’s likely to pull this unoriginal gem out in those moments at the dinner table while his mother and I are trying to figure out our schedule for the next day, or when we need to talk about something of significance. Sometimes he follows the question up by flashing an adorable smile, and it’s impossible to remember that less than five seconds earlier he was grinding so hard on my nerves. There is a tiny, inconvenient fact I try to keep in mind when I can’t seem to let these transgressions pass. I’m raising a miniature version of myself. As a parent, that sentiment alone is nothing new or shocking. But as my 2-year-old gets older, it becomes more glaring, and not always flattering. My wife occasionally brings up a story that may have served me better untold. When I was a kid probably not much older than Jamie, a friend of the family threatened to charge me a nickel a question. Even at that rate, he likely could have become rich. All of the goofy behavioral quirks, they come from somewhere. Genetics plays a big role in this family. I get it. I asked a lot of questions as a kid, and the universe is paying me back. As hard as it can be to listen to at times, I hope he retains that curiosity. It paid off for me, with a career in journalism. I got to explore a variety of issues, asking a steady barrage of questions well into adulthood. I’m rewarded with a lot of knowledge about random subjects that I wouldn’t otherwise understand. His curiosity is growing, and with that will come more advanced questions. He’s already begun to ask a few. Some of the questions he’s asked are rather impressive, and a few questions make me want to crawl into a corner and hide. I’m also confident that someday he’ll understand that’s his dog, and he can begin asking a new set of questions. I know they’ll evolve, but I’m 100 percent confident they’ll never stop, and I don’t want them to. For...

Jamie’s extremely adept at piecing his surroundings together. But for every time he pulls out a new word we weren’t aware he knew, or every time he learns a concept, there is an equal misinterpretation. I’m not talking about something simple or benign. I’m talking about piecing your world together in a way only a 2-year-old could. Toddlers are a resourceful bunch, and they work with the information that’s been presented to them. But sometimes that information is simply not enough. Following are six of the most awkward, strangest or scariest things my 2-year-old has said in his short time. “Chip and Dales” – This is how Jamie refers to chips. Meg and I thought it was so funny the first time we heard it that we haven’t made a strong effort to correct it. I believe it comes from a cartoon. But try explaining that when you have company over. “Is that a dinosaur?” – Kudos to you, kid, for trying to make sense of your surroundings. But I don’t think the woman you pointed at in the grocery store would appreciate your question. Even though she was a stranger, and it wasn’t me there, it was Meg, I can definitively answer. No, she was not a dinosaur. “There’s a spider on your back.” – You could probably tell mommy this an infinite number of times, and never be labeled as the boy who cried spider. This is because mommy is terrified of spiders. Trust me, she’ll take you seriously. For everyone’s sake though, you might want to make sure it’s an actual spider and not just a tag on the back of her sweater while she’s driving. Next time she’s liable to put the car in the ditch. “Look, it’s a spider in the sky!” – No buddy, that’s a ceiling fan. And for reasons stated above, a ceiling fan is how you should refer to it. “It’s a sky monster!” – Ok so this one is a pretty adorable way to refer to the loudest jet we’ve heard coming out of our local airport. He followed this up with “It goes ROOOOAAARRR!” A logical connection to a 2-year-old, but strange all the same. “That’s not a lady!!” – Another comment made about a stranger while grocery shopping. Again, I wasn’t there, but I am pretty sure he was wrong. Another shining example of our 2-year-old making friends. If you like what you read, please vote for me by clicking the Top Daddy Blog Link below or sharing on social media....