Father Of The Blog

If being mean spirited to your sister was an olympic sport then my girls would take the gold, silver and possibly the bronze. Expecting arguments and bickering, they aren’t immune to disagreements, but lately the hurtful things my children have been saying to each other, truthful or not, needs to be addressed and nullified. Yesterday, a Daddy Day, the teasing, squabbling and screaming eclipsed to the point where I wanted to say, “If you tell her three times to stop and she doesn’t stop then go ahead and hit her.” I’m not even sure what that specific issue was about, but I was not interested in solving every tiny argument between Olivia and Hailey, I was looking for a solution to the main problem which I might have solved or I may have made the problem worse, probably made it worse, you tell me.

The sibling rivalry between Olivia and Hailey is severe. Nothing Hailey does measures up to Olivia’s expectations. Hailey’s artwork is “worthless scribble scrabble.” Or, Hailey “doesn’t even know that.” Or “Hailey’s not even good at that.” Attempting to belittle Hailey’s accomplishments, Olivia feels more important and smarter about herself. I have tried to explain to her that this is a bad thing, “Making her feel bad doesn’t make you feel good.” It drives me crazy because among many things Hailey is quick minded and anticipates what is expected of her. And god forbid, if I ever try to praise Hailey for something, without Olivia whining, “What about me!? I am too!? or I did that too!? or I’m good too!?” And Olivia gets plenty of credit and praise when it is deserved. She just can’t stand to see Hailey succeed at anything.

Don’t get me wrong, it is not all Olivia, because Hailey can be just as mean to her sisters too, “I’m never going to play with you!” is her signature threat when she doesn’t get her way. Or storming off to her room to sulk when she doesn’t win or is losing at a game. Or screaming point blank in Elizabeth’s or Olivia’s face not to take her stuff. Or Hailey shaking her tooshie and teasing Olivia, to the tune of naner-naner boo-boo’s, “I have a play-date and you are a poopy-head.” Hailey’s raspberry song has been rattling around up there for a day or so.

Elizabeth is competing with her two older sisters too. For instance she jockey’s for a seat in Kim’s lap during story time throwing elbows to get the most comfortable spot. She complains at the dinner table feeling left out of conversations and tonight swiped the last pear slice from Olivia gloating as she gobbled it up. She can’t share or take turns with any of her six or seven prized baby dolls. But I guess this is all normal for a one year old.

After a busy daddy day morning of refereeing I had devised a rudimentary plan; use my princess’s competitive nature to enlighten them in good sisterhood skills. My bright idea: ‘Good Sister Awards’ and the timing could not have been better because as I was hashing out PB&Js for lunch Olivia noticed an Elmo cup at the top of her place setting. A simple mistake on my part really, because for the past year anything sesame street has been unacceptable, “that’s for babies” I should have known by the disdain for sesame street, except for when the show is actually playing, not to set the Elmo cup anywhere near Olivia and she whined and complained about the cup. I told her, “it is a cup with your water in it” she persisted and I replied, “you git what you git, and you don’t throw a fit.” Hailey joining chorus on the last part.

Olivia kept going on and on about the Elmo cup. I repeated “no” a half a dozen times, each “no” pushing me closer to going Alec Baldwin on her. I considered that for a split second before deciding to cave-in and offer her the opportunity to pick her own cup when suddenly Hailey volunteered to switch cups. The parenting gods had chosen this moment to merit the first “Good sister Award” right there on the spot to Hailey for her unselfishness and she was proud of herself. And what does Olivia do? She fusses, “What about me… I’m a good sister too?”

“Show me, don’t tell me.” I replied to Olivia which spurred her to break her string cheese precisely in half to share with Hailey. “That deserves a good sister award” I said finally pleasing her. During lunch we discussed how we were going to track the awards and came up with a plan to fill decorated plastic jars with ‘good sister award chips’. Then those chips could be cashed in for special prizes.

Good idea?  I’m not so sure yet myself, it may be a bit too competitive in nature, I’ll let you know how this one turns out.

Sue the Tyrannosaurus Rex

Olivia came home from preschool a few weeks ago asking if we could go see the dinosaur at the Science Center. “Sure” I said somewhat surprised that she had any interest in the life-sized animatronics display which she has skirted two dozen times in the past; however I had mistakenly assumed the permanent crustaceous period display is what she was referring too. Evidently a boy in her class had been talking up Sue the Tyrannosaurus Rex on special exhibit and this information received via preschool playground chatter was a first too my knowledge about Sue traveling from Chicago’s Field Museum to our Science Center. I had to check online to verify the fact and sure enough I am at the stage in my life in which my five year old enlightens me to the most current social attractions around town.

This week’s daddy day, my mom (Bubie) accompanied Olivia, Hailey, Elizabeth and me to see Sue. Surprisingly, there was a bunch to do for preschool age kiddos at this special traveling exhibit. The main attraction, Sue the T-Rex, huge with teeth the size of railroad spikes, “Scary, but not really, ‘cause its exstink,” Olivia recanted later, was dominantly displayed front and center. Then there were a bunch of activities to hold the little princesses interest. An archaeological dig where 4” paint brushes were handy for discovering prehistoric bones covered in rubber mulch. A sifting station where real petrified bone fragments had been re-cast in stone, the goal was to scrape away the plastered stones with toothbrushes to expose the ancient bones. There were several craft stations for creating dino helmets, dino hatchlings, dino necklaces, and dino art. Also a smart beat the clock game, the objective was to puzzle together bone shaped pieces magnetized to a vertical T-Rex and if the light-bar timer terminated before the puzzle was complete the game demagnetized resulting in all the pieces falling off. There were a couple I-Spy through the eyes of a dinosaur mini exhibits. And a few hands on hydraulic mechanically operated simulators illuminating how the strong jaws, the heavy tail and the mini arms would have worked on a T-Rex.

Family with Sue the Tyrannosaurus Rex

The exhibit kept my kiddos actively immersed for over an hour, one bummer thou, Elizabeth was bored and cranky not much for her to do and confined to her stroller for that length of time. Besides her slightly agitated demeanor, it was a great visit. How do I know? Within ten minutes of getting home, Hailey was asking me when we were going back to see Sue the Dinosaur at the Science Center.

Kim and I decided that a Wii would be a good family investment. You know, we envisioned happy scenes of the whole family playing interactive games together, exchanging high fives, cheering each other on and spending quality time together, which for the most part became reality except for a few emotional breakdowns due to extremely competitive egos which I will get to later.

When discussing the purchase, I gave Olivia and Hailey the idea of chipping in a few unredeemed gift cards from the holidays to sway the decision in favor of buying a new Wii console. Elizabeth didn’t (couldn’t) object, contributing her unspent gift card too. The fix was in. This past Sunday we piled into the Odyssey and headed to the local Toys R Us where plenty of Wii consoles were in stock. We roamed the endless overwhelming toy filled isles for hours, each of my girls (excluding Kim) indecisive about picking out a small toy and then relinquishing the remaining balance on their gift cards to collaboratively purchase the family gift. Finally Olivia picked out a Littlest Pet Shop toy, Hailey an Aurora doll and Elizabeth a new talking baby doll.

I was hesitant when it came time to enter the tighter than airport security gamer coral and asked the young helpful Toys R Us customer service girl to unlock us a Wii console. “Is this all I need?” I asked. The perky sales assistant said that I may need an extra controller; undecidedly I turned to Kim who gave me the nod. I can drop twice the amount on new inline skates or a new road bike without a second thought, but leaving the store an empty feeling kept me thinking, “Was this money well spent?”

In the van, on the ride home, I turned to Kim and said, “Happy Valentine’s Day.” She laughed and repeated the phrase back too me.

It didn’t take long to get the Wii setup, but I did have to get creative with the hookup to my ancient surround sound tuner. A lack of auxiliary space forced me to change the VCR’s (yes, we still have one), audio setup, no big deal, I got all my components working.

The kiddos love Mii. They spend most of their computer time on pixiehollow.com recreating fairies so building Mii’s came natural to them. We must have spent an hour on fashioning characters that closely resemble each of us. I secretly desired Kim’s Mii to accurately depict her as she is in real life, sultry and hot, but ironically her Mii ended up bookish.

As mentioned in the first paragraph of this post we experienced a couple emotional outbursts during game play which I am about to explain. The first game we played was Wii Sports Bowling. In the first frame, Hailey knocked down seven pins and failed to pickup any more pins on her second bowl. She stormed off, sulking her way to her room and slammed the door shut. For years I have been explaining to both Olivia and Hailey the importance of good sportsmanship. Finishing a game is an important part of being a good sport and nobody wants to play with a poor sport. Luckily I didn’t have to lecture her this time and Uncle Alan (my brother in law) was there to temporarily stand-in for Hailey’s second frame, by the third frame she had come back to the game on her own accord. Not only did she finish the game she beat Kim and me.

Another Hailey outburst occurred the following day. I had just walked in the door, home from work and Hailey was in her room crying on her bed. “What’s wrong with her” I asked Kim. She said that Hailey and Olivia were playing great together on the Wii, encouraging each other to do well and when they finished bowling Hailey got upset, presumably because she lost. I entered her room and I think she was embarrassed at her behavior because she turtled under her covers. I sat down next to her, silent for a few minutes until she was finished whimpering. “What’s wrong?” I asked. She skirted the root of the problem and said that mommy had yelled at her and wouldn’t let her play the boxing game, which was probably a diluted version of what really happened but I didn’t question any further. I told her that we would play the next day which happened to be a daddy day.

Back to my question, “Is the Wii money well spent?” Yes, I think so.

For every hundred failures one successful idea will prevail. About a year ago I had one of those successes. It is a great parenting tip and I want to share.

Contained within a dryly PhD written child development book which I can’t remember the title, I found an interesting factoid that stood out; three out of every four teenage girls has an unsatisfactory self image. When I read this I could see truth in that. Of course the professional child psychiatrist who recorded that fact had no solution to combat the ugly trend, pointing to external cultural influences as the cause.

That gloomy stat slowly began to creep up on my girls, In photographs Olivia would mimic cover model’s expressions that she’d seen from Glamour mags while waiting in line at the supermarket, Hailey started using words like “fat” or “ugly” to describe other people and Olivia desired to wear clothing emulating teenyboppers. Pop culture was stealing my children’s innocence. It was only a matter of time before Olivia’s and Hailey’s own inadequacies bound them into a suffocating comma of self doubt and uncertainty. I had to find a solid method to instill confidence in my young princesses and repel the damaging tide of filth spewing from every direction. That method came from another book. A book that I do remember: Get Real Get Rich by Farrah Gray, an inspirational read about a south-side Chicago kid who grew out of poverty to become wealthy in more ways than monetarily. Somewhere in that book I came across a confidence builder that worked for the author; looking in the mirror and reciting self affirmations. Yup, the perfect remedy to instill self-confidence in my girls.

Close to a year ago I got my girls into the habit of saying something nice about themselves or something that they are good at when they stood in front of the mirror while getting ready for preschool. Now, anytime they step in front of a mirror they automatically have something positive to say (or think) about themselves and both Olivia and Hailey appear to be more self assured, upbeat and less hypnotized by our glamified culture.

I can tell them a bazillion times (and I do) that they are beautiful or intelligent or good at something not making a dent in their psyche. However when they have convinced themselves that they are good or pretty or smart, a noticeable internal foundation of confidence is clearly evident. In three or five or ten or twenty years will my girls turn out to be overly confident even conceited? Maybe, but it’s better than the alternative.