Over the years, my kids rarely get up in the middle of the night because they’ve had a bad dream. When it does happen, it seems to come in waves. We’ll go months without somebody crying out for mommy or daddy (usually daddy), and then get three or four in a week. Some of them legit – there was a scary shadow a few days ago. Some of them completely unexplained. Last week when asked what her dream was about, she said she didn’t know. I’m not sure if there was a monster she just couldn’t bring herself to mention, or some abstract construction of her subconscious mind that she quite literally didn’t know what was happening. Terrifying either way.

One of them however, was a new one. My three year-old son woke up crying and wanted his mommy because he had a dream too frightening it jolted him awake. So scary he needed to be soothed back to sleep. In this bone-chilling nightmare – his toothbrush…(brace yourself people)….fell into the potty!

DUN DUN DUUUUUUN!!!

In a way, I get it. That would be terrible. The misery of the extraction goes without saying. Have to spend the next forty five minutes washing your hands. Have to replace that tooth brush. Hassle all around. Don’t know if that is exactly nightmare fuel, but a major hassle for sure.

But for who?

Exactly none of the repercussions of my son’s toothbrush taking a dive into the crapper would fall on him. I’d be the one fishing it out, disinfecting thoroughly, and looking for a new toothbrush. He’d be the one not caring that he doesn’t have to brush his teeth tonight. Maybe he is just so concerned for me that the thought of putting that undue stress on me was scary for him. He can be thoughtful that way. Let’s pretend for a second that’s the case. I appreciate him looking out for me, but I don’t think that rises to the level of scary enough to force you awake. Give you the jibblies, yes, but leave your crying for mommy – no.

So is my son a germaphobe? I’m keenly aware of his hygiene habits, so I’d have to say no. However, he absolutely hates having dirty hands. He has absolutely no issue licking, well, pretty much anything, but his meal will come to a screeching halt should he get something on his hands. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a three year-old eat, but he asks for a lot of napkins. Syrup, honey, ketchup, an apple that’s too juicy. Are these what keeps the boy awake at night?

As I write this it is almost Halloween. I’ve been wondering what movies would be the right level of spooky for him, but perhaps it doesn’t matter. He’d be more freaked out about the butter from the popcorn getting on his fingers than whatever is happening on the screen. He could care less if there was a monster under his bed as long as there isn’t something under his fingernails. I have no doubt that the scariest thing that will happen to him this Halloween is scooping the innards out of the pumpkin. I’ll prepare myself to be woken up by the nightmare that is sure to ensue from the terror that is goopy pumpkin fingers.

Though I wonder, what if his scary toothbrush dream was not some manifestation of a subconscious (or very conscious) fear, but rather his brain’s rehashing of something that actually happened. Depending on how you interpret dreams, there is a school of thought that says dreams are the brain’s way of processing the day’s events. Could he have have actually dropped his toothbrush in the toilet? Was he so embarrassed that it happened and so scared of the aftermath that his little brain immediately tried to repress it only to have his dream bring it back up? Though, if he dropped is toothbrush in the toilet, I have to believe he would have asked for help. I mean, he asks for help with 90% of the other things he does in the bathroom.

Unless he felt like he couldn’t ask me for help. Because it wasn’t his toothbrush he dropped. It was mine. I can see it now – he was in there goofing around rather that doing whatever it was he was supposed to be doing. He picked my toothbrush and pretended it was a paintbrush, first rubbing it all over the walls, then on the floor, and finally the inside of the toilet. His little uncoordinated fingers lose grip, and in goes my toothbrush. In a panic he reaches in and quickly puts in back in place, thinking he’ll move on and never think of it again. Until he dreamt. The thought of his father unknowingly brushing his teeth with a toothbrush that had been toileted was too much for him to stand.

Well now whose subconscious is running away with them? That didn’t happen. Probably. That probably didn’t happen. Good God I hope that didn’t happen. Am I getting Inceptioned by my three year old? Whelp, I know what my next nightmare is going to be about. And so does he.

DUN DUN DUUUUUUUUN!

I won a raffle at a local coffee shop this week (shout out to Sparrows!) and my prize was a gift basket of stuff. It was sitting out on the counter when my wife got home from work, and upon seeing it she joyfully exclaimed “Shut up! We won!?”

While my kids were not that excited about their mom winning some coffee and related accouterments, they were very excited to be able to call their mom out for using a bad word. They were quick to point out that mom used the “S” word – shut up.

While I suppose I’m glad they still live in an innocent enough world where the “S” word is shut up, it is a little annoying. For one thing, it has caused confusion when one of them tells me that somebody said the “S” word, as my mind for sure does not go directly to shut up. To make things even more confusingly G-rated, “stupid” has also been called the “S” word in our house.

Kid: “Somebody at school said the “S” word today.”
Me: “Uh-oh, that’s not nice.”
Kid: “I know, it was the S-H “S” word.
Me: “Uuuuuummmmmm…what did they say?”
Kid: *whispering* “Shut up.”
Me: “Oh, right. Well, yeah don’t say that.”

The larger annoyance with “shut up” being considered a bad word, is that sometimes I really want to tell my kids to shut up. It probably wouldn’t be considered great parenting, but I bet it sure would be effective in getting them to stop talking. Or more accurately, stop whining. Actually, most accurately, stop singing.

Using good manners in politely asking them to be quiet is great way to model the kind of behavior I want them to have. However, it’s not a great way to actually get them to be quiet. Most of the time their assorted noises are too loud for them to hear me anyway. Or last I think it is, but I’m beginning to be convinced that they can hear me but are choosing to ignore me. I went to my daughter’s first grade classroom, and the teacher’s way to get a room full of high volume kids was to say “class, class” in a completely normal tone of voice at a completely normal volume. Every single one of those kids heard him perfectly fine and responded “yes, yes” at an equally normal volume. Am I to believe my kids can’t hear me tell them to be quiet from the other side of the kitchen? Liars.

Of course I can only be so patient and manners are sometimes set aside. There have been many occasions when all I wanted to do was tell a kid to shut up. I’ve tried alternatives; stop talking, don’t say words, don’t open your mouth, stop saying things. None of which really work that well. The thing that comes closest is “shut your mouth”, but this apparently is close enough to shut up to be considered a bad word. I have gotten in multiple debates with my seven year-old about if “shut your mouth” is or is not the same thing as “shut up.” So apparently “shut” is what makes something bad to say.

Shut up = bad.
Shut your mouth = bad.
Hush up = allowed. And also gives you the charm of a southern nanny. Slap a “y’all” on the front and a “now” and you can threaten to send them to bed without their vittles while you’re at it.
Shut the front door = confusing. My kids would have no idea. If anything, they’d get mad at me because the door already is shut.

Who said “shut up” counted as a bad word anyway? While it might be rude, it isn’t profane. My kids say lots of rude things. Almost everyday one of them comes up to me and tells me one of the others is being rude to them. They can scream at each other, they can whisper insults under their breath at each other, they can make feral cat noises at each other, but telling each other to shut up crosses a line.

Can we conditionally move the line? I think there are circumstances where it is more important to deliver the message you want to deliver and set the fear of being rude aside. I actually did it with a different “S” word, and it worked. While my daughters fought over some nonsense thing that I honestly don’t remember what it was, it told them that it was ridiculous that they argue over something so stupid.

“Dad, you said a bad word!” They were quick to point out, stopping the argument they were having now that they had dad’s bad language to focus on.

“Yes, I did,” I told them. “Because that’s exactly what it is.” Message delivered. Message received.

So what’s the way to go? Using shock value of behavior I don’t want them to emulate in order to force them into a behavior I do want, or modeling the behavior I want to encourage in them in hopes that they pick up? I feel like “do as I say, not as I do” never works. I suppose I’ll have to keep being the adult and choke back what I really want to say in favor of teaching them and being a good example. Surely, that is the thing a good parent would do. Putting a child’s need to grow up in a loving, healthy, communicative environment over my need to express my frustration over their still developing interpersonal skills.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to learn how to say “shut up” in sign language.

Even before my kids were born, we always had music in the house. Records, radio, streaming, whatever, just something playing in the background. After my kids were born, we introduced them to music pretty much from the time we brought them home from the hospital. Music is supposed to be good for their little developing brains, right? As they have gotten older, the music has remained. They always ask for (demand) lullabies, they tell Alexa what to play, (we tell Alexa “thumbs down” when they aren’t paying attention), and they are always singing. Always. What used to be comfortably in the background has been thrust loudly to the foreground.

Between my wife and I, we’ve exposed our kids to a pretty wide variety of music. Classic dad rock of Seger and Springsteen. Crooners of Dean and Frank. Pop icons of Michael Jackson and Phil Collins. And yes, even a few people who weren’t already on the charts in the 1970s – my oldest daughter’s first concert was Lauren Daigle. All they have absorbed is coming out, almost to the point where they can communicate entirely in song. Its like I’m living in the lowest budget production of Les Miserables ever made. While it can certainly be entertaining, it can also make me les miserables.

Singing the Wrong Words

I try not to hold it against them when my kids get the words wrong. Their vocabulary isn’t fully developed yet and even if they’ve heard the words before they don’t understand the lyrics. However, what is really something to hear is how much they lean into the incorrect lyrics. They sing them with gusto, insist they are singing it right, and will fight over it if you have the gall to correct them. The greatest hits include:

• In “Believer” by Imagine Dragons, they’ve interpreted they lyric “You made me a, made me a believer, believer” as “Pick me up, pick me up Aleela, Aleela.” As if there was a person whose name was Aleela that they are asking to hoist them in the air.
• I don’t know the name of the song, but the word “Lord” was consistently replaced with “bone.” Slippery slope all around on that one.
• In “Love Fool” by the Cardigans, they have changed “Love me, love me. Say that you love me.” To “Burgundy, burgundy. Say you love me.” I’d say its impossible to make that song worse, but not sure if that makes it any better.
• In “This is Me” from The Greatest Showman, my daughter insists they say “sexy kay.” I’m pretty sure she doesn’t know what sexy means and that she’s just mimicking sounds. Or at least that’s what I’ll tell myself.

They Sing Like a Broken Record

My kids can sing the same song for hours. However, they don’t know all the words to any song, or at least any song that longer than “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.” So we get treated to the same few lines – or sometimes same few words – over and over again. One lyric at a time follows an endless loop of annoyance, white noise, and then back to annoyance when you realize its been twenty minutes and they are still on “I just don’t belong here, I hope you’ll understand” and Gabriella is yet to go her own way. If you know you know.

The flip side to this coin is going from a lyric in one song, to a lyric in a completely different one, and then to yet another. Its like listening to a commercial for “Now That’s What I Call Out of Key Singing 37” – from the the bastards that brought you Kidz Bop.

A Musical Play by Play

Sometimes the kids just sing what they happen to be doing at that moment. I’ve heard songs about legos, lunch, shoes, coloring, pretty much anything they do. Always unprompted. It’s like they are recreating the scene in Elf where Buddy sings to his dad, and I’m standing there like James Caan waiting for the chorus to make sense. But it’s not like I put them on the spot and tell them to sing me a song, causing them to panic and try to make up lyrics based on whatever is in their line of sight. They were just struck by the mood to sing about their oatmeal.

Just Sounds

I was going to say “just notes”, but that would be a stretch. Sometimes its a long, sustained single sound. Sometimes repetitive noises like they are playing the drums in an a capella group. Sometimes they sound like they are trying to hold a note while riding a roller coaster – it goes up, it goes down, it gets louder, it gets quieter. But it doesn’t stop.

In cases where they don’t have a wrong word to use, they swap out words (or whole lines) they don’t know for sounds. Usually “oooohs” or “aaahs” that mostly match the pitch of the words they’re replacing. Always at a higher volume than necessary.

It can be loud and it can be annoying, but I don’t want to discourage it because it can also be funny and entertaining. But more importantly it is tapping into their creativity. I assume that this is the intended effects of all the music we played for the kids when they were babies. Hearing them take in, interpret, and then make their own versions of the music they hear is development happening right before my ears. I just wish the little Jean Valjeans would develop some harmony.

The only thing worse than one of them belting out a mix of noises and mispronounced lyrics is when we’ve got one kid seeing how long they can sustain the same noise, one kid meandering their way through all the songs in the Aladdin soundtrack, and one kid screaming because they want to be the only one singing. At this stage in their development, there is clearly a difference in liking music and being musical, and my kids sure do like music.

My three-year old son has a lot of stereotypical little boy tendencies. He likes looking at big trucks. He likes to play with cars. He’ll walk up to you and randomly punch you in the leg. Not to be pigeon holed into traditionally assigned gender-based interests, he also enjoys the aesthetic of having freshly painted toe nails.

For over a year now, any time his older sisters are getting their nails painted, he insists on getting his pained too. At first it was just him not wanting to be left out of something his sisters were getting. To help him feel included, my wife would paint one of his big toes. He would look at it. He was proud of it. He was happy to have it. Over the last few months, he’s become less pleased with only having one pained nail, and I’m pretty sure its not just the inclusion he enjoys. I believe he genuinely likes how he looks with a full compliment of pretty toes.

At first, the sight of my little guy with one pink toenail was odd, as was the idea that I had a little boy with one pink toenail. The visual quickly became the norm. To be fair, as an adorable toddler, there isn’t much that doesn’t make him look cute. Pink toenails, giant uni-brow, prehensile tail, wouldn’t matter. That handsome little pudgeball could pull it off. The idea on the other hand, is something I’m not sure what to do with.

I’m not not locked into some antiquated way of thinking that says a boy can’t do this or has to do that. If my my son wants to get his toenails painted once a month and it makes him happy, then good on him. Who am I to ruin the happiness off a three-year old? But what about the happiness of a nine-year old? How long does this last? How does this play out?

His sisters have already dressed him up in tutus and princess dresses. He doesn’t seem to mind (I have pictures of course, so I guess we’ll see how much he minds when I show those to people when he’s older). Again, he’s just happy to be included in playing dress up with them. His hair isn’t long enough to really do anything to, but his sisters have put various clips in his hair, he likes it. On one such occasion, he walked up to me with two of those kinds of hair clips that kids inevitably clamp on their lips and said, “I’m pretty.” Yes buddy. Yes you are.

As I’ve previously discussed, dad is not pretty. If my son is developing the self-confidence to believe that he’s pretty, then good for him. But like I said, how does this play out? Will being the guy with painted toenails become his thing? Will he be a trendsetter in men’s fashion? Or will he be a middle schooler who gets made fun of because his toenails are orange and middle school kids are the worst?

Another possibility is me or my wife putting a stop to it. I can’t help but think that would make me a bad parent. My kid’s happiness is all that matters, right? Or would gently nudging him in the direction of having normal, ugly, man feet ultimately be protecting him. And isn’t protecting my kids all that matters? I’d like to think I’d let him do whatever makes him happy. Be that having pretty toenails, a handlebar mustache, maybe both at the same time. As long has he’s got the confidence to pull it off. So maybe that’s all that matters – helping my son feel confident.

If playing with trucks helps build his confidence in playing with other kids, then I’ll buy him all the Tonkas. If hitting a baseball helps him feel confident in his abilities, then I’ll throw him batting practice until my arm falls off. If having his toenails painted makes him feel confident in his appearance, then I’ll get him a Caboodle filled with all the colors of the rainbow. Its hard to know if you’re parenting right, but if my son turns out to be a guy with beautifully painted toes and an expertly trimmed handlebar mustache which he rocks confidently as hell – I’ll know I did something right.

I never really wondered what my kids thoughts of me. Then again, I never had to. They are open about telling me I’m the best dad ever after I perform such incredible feats as blowing on their hot oatmeal or being done with work for the day. Low as the bar to impress them might be, I sure did clear the hell out of it. Though being deemed the best dad ever is neat, it’s also pretty cliche. Any schmuck with the ability to buy a t-shirt or coffee mug can carry that honor. It is far more rare for your kids to think you’re cool.

Parents are many things, but they are almost never cool. Parenting (if you don’t count the part where you make the kid) is pretty inherently an uncool act. There is nothing cool about wiping another person’s butt. Enforcing a bed time is not something cool people do. Remember that time a really cool person drove a mini-van by choice? No. You don’t.

However, something I have done has made the impression on my kids that I am cool. How do I know? Because they drew it on my car. They saw the dirty lift gate on the back of my Jeep as a canvas, and chose to use it to tell all those who are in traffic behind me that the guy driving in front of them is a cool dad. Though anybody behind me would already know I’m cool because of my Batman trailer hitch cover, but this third party endorsement of my coolness absolutely seals it.

Excited as I am to be considered cool, I now wonder what it is about me that makes them think I’m cool. I know they like it when I give them piggyback rides to bed at night, but does being a reliable form of transportation make me cool? I don’t think so (see previous comment about uncool mini-vans). I put on Michael Jackson when they ask to listen to it in the car. 40 years ago that would for sure make me a cool dad. Today? Not so sure. I bet it’s my insistence on feeding them vegetables. Kids love that, right?

I realize though, that by wondering why they think I’m cool I am actual being uncool. Cool people don’t wonder what makes them cool or even care if other people think they are cool. They just are. You think Dave Grohl is worried about if his kids think he’s cool? Probably wouldn’t give it a second thought if one of them wrote “cool dad” on the site of his tour bus. Then again, maybe he’d go write a song with Paul McCartney about it which would further reinforce his coolness. Me questioning my alleged coolness is inherently uncool.

But uncool to who? Whom? Who? The fact that I don’t really know the appropriate time to use whom makes me at least kind of cool right? A nerdy person would have paid enough attention in English class to know when to say whom, cool kids couldn’t be bothered with trivial grammatical details. Not that I would have been considered a cool kid in school either. I wasn’t some anti-social weirdo or anything, its just that looking back there is no way that a cool kid in 2003 would have been driving around with Jim Croce’s greatest hits playing on his truck’s cassette player.

Anywhom, if I am uncool to other adults (or even uncool to myself) does it matter as long as my kids think I’m cool? I’m 38 years old and pretty much done trying to make new friends or meet people. I could care less if my neighbor thinks I’m cool, but if my daughters think I’m cool then my day is made. And if they think I’m cool when they’re six, they will surely think I’m cool when they are sixteen. That’s how it works, right?

Even if for some completely unforeseeable reason my teenage children no longer think I’m cool, I’m not going to worry about that now. As much as I might not want to admit it, the day will absolutely come when they don’t call me cool, or even call me Daddy anymore. But that day isn’t today. Like the pine trees lining the winding road, I’ve got a name. And that name is Cool Dad.

I had always heard there was a special bond between dads and daughters. Of course I’ve never been a daughter, but I did watch a lot of Full House growing up so I’m pretty sure I got it. Now that I am on the daddy side of the daddy-daughter relationship, I can affirm that there is a difference in the relationships I have with with my daughters than I have with my son. Not that I love them more or anything, its just different. Subconsciously, I probably do end up treating them different than my boy. Extremely consciously, they love me. A lot. Sometimes too much.

Ok, maybe “too much” isn’t the right thing to say. Perhaps too completely would be more accurate. They love me like a daughter loves their dad, but they also love me like a cartoon princess loves a cartoon prince, and the way a teenage girl in a rom-com loves a teenage boy. Right now they are too young to grasp the difference between the different types of love, so they model not only the love they receive, but also the love they see, and lump it all together in a big awkward love ball. (Which by the way is a great name for a band.)

When they see my wife and I hug or kiss, they have two reactions – eeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwww, or jealousy. They are either completely appalled that mom and dad would smoochy kiss, or feel the need to run over and insert themselves between us to break up a hug because “hey, that’s MY daddy!” And I get that. It’s all playful and fun, and it has been and forever will be weird for a kid to see their parents being romantic. However, it starts to get weirder when they start to confuse being romantic with what an appropriate goodnight kiss is when I tuck them in.

My younger daughter is almost five, but since the time she was three (or whenever she saw her first prince kiss a princess), she developed the habit of wanting to kiss like in the movies. She’ll take one hand and put it under your chin as if to guide you in. In a way, adorable. In a larger way, kind of creepy. Especially now that she is getting older. It would send a really weird vibe if she leans in to plant one on me when I’m dropping her off for her first day of kindergarten. Kid that eats glue is just a doofus, kid that wants to make out with her dad is whole new set of problems.

She has also started applying movie quotes to show affection. Pretty much all day long my kids run around and shout stuff from shows or movies while they play. Quotes from Super Kitties, while annoying, are fine, and I’m pretty sure 60% of what my six year old says is song lyrics. But quotes from the gold-digging bitch fiancé from The Parent Trap? Not so much. I didn’t notice the first time when she leaned in for a kiss in her usual hand-under-the-chin style and said “oh Nicky.” I figured she was just being silly. Then it happened several more times and I was officially creeped out. I mean sure, it’s a little flattering my daughter sees me on the same level as a young(ish) Dennis Quaid, but I was creeped out on out on two different levels.

First, she wanted to kiss me, her father, the same way that romantic interests in movies do. Again, she is still little and doesn’t grasp that the love between us is different from the love between a mom and a dad or a fat kid and cake. But still, ew.

Second, and this part actually bothered me more, is in the little story she’s constructed in her head she has cast herself as the antagonist in somebody else’s love story. She wasn’t acting like the person who actually gets married to Dennis Quaid at the end of the movie. She was acting like the pretty lady who wore pretty dresses – who just so happened to be the worst person in the movie. Do better kid.

My older daughter is pretty much in the same love boat, except it is not so much exciting and new as it is awkward. While not outright mimicking a single character, she is definitely confusing the love she sees with the love she feels. Starting a few weeks ago, she has been wanting her goodnight kisses on the lips. At first, ok, little peck, no biggie. Now its like she’s a high school boy on a crappy date and I’m struggling to turn my head so she lands on my cheek at the last second. And even when she does land on the cheek, she lingers. And clings. Like an adorable lamprey.

Now I’m in an awkward position. I don’t want to tell her she can’t kiss me. I want her to be able to express appropriate affection and see that as a healthy part of our relationship. So I tell her that’s not how you kiss your daddy, but so far that nuance hasn’t sunk in. She knows she loves me, and she knows she wants to kiss me.

I always wanted to make a point of showing my kids affection, but did I do too good of a job? The next time one of them leans in for a kiss do I offer them a hearty handshake instead? Replace a hug at school drop off with a wink-and-a-gun? What new confusion would I create then? They’d go from thinking I’m the male lead in their personal little rom-coms to wondering if daddy doesn’t love them anymore? Maybe I’ll just get rid of the external influences. No more movies or shows where people kiss. Or hug. Or fall in love at all. But also nothing with fighting – they watch Raya and the Last Dragon and they are sword fighting around the house for a month. So, I hope they like Winnie the Pooh.

I get that in a world where there are dads and daughters that legit have terrible relationships, that this is a parenting first-world problem. My daughters think I’m a proper man. So funny and handsome that they can’t help but love me (clearly they take after their mother), boo-hoo, right? But the next time one of them sandwiches my face between their tiny hands and starts to lean in for a smoochy kiss, would it be too much to pull a Billy Madison and scream “No, I will not make out with you! Did you hear that? This girl wants to make out with me in the middle of story time! Ya got Piggy and Gerald over here talking about god knows what, and all she’s talking about is making out with me! I’m here to read everybody, not to make out with you! Go on with the Gerald!” Unless its Piggy and Gerald getting them all riled up? Maybe they need a mood killer. Maybe next time I’ll read them the latest musings of…*picks random name from list of writers*…ah yes, Mikhail Solodovnikov for a change of pace. Somehow I think that may make them love me more.

I’m curious to try that, but my luck they would think its hilarious, would insist on making it part of the bedtime routine, and they’d beg for it the next several hundred nights in a row. I’m just too damn lovable.