The Busy Dad Survival Kit - Part I

You’ve read the books, you’ve scoured the internet, you’ve done all you can to ensure junior’s well-being for every contingency imaginable, from floods and famine to jellyfish stings. Almost there… keep the following arsenal on-hand to solidify your status as the family superhero.

1. Gallon Zipper Baggies
   You may know them as Ziploc bags, but to use this term would be unfair to my favorite brand in this category: Hefty OneZips. With an easy zipper tab that slides like ball bearings, even your youngest one can seal in freshness with the best of them.
   Function: Hands down the best small-toy transport solution around. Action figures can take their guns to town, Lego vehicles can travel (and fall apart) without fear of leaving essential parts behind, and you can accommodate as many Hotwheels as your kid can carry without a sustaining a hernia. Secondary uses include bringing anything home that contains grains of sand (seashells, this cool rock), is wet, or dead (encourage scientific discovery, parents!).
   Location: Keep a couple in the car and a box at home.
   
   
2. Kitchen Shears
   Invest in a quality pair of kitchen shears. Nothing better illustrates the adage “you get what you pay for” than kitchen shears. Go cheap and opening a bag of frozen peas will drive you to drink (think back to using "lefty" scissors as a kid). Lay down a day’s pay on a behind-the-glass showpiece and you'll invoke your inner Connor MacLeod. 
   Function: Don't you hate cutting your kid's meat and vegetables?  Whether you move it to a cutting board or cut on-plate (metal on porcelain - skreee!), it's no fun.  With a killer pair of shears, you're in, you're out, you're all eating -- 10 seconds tops.  Try to refrain from taunting the steak with "who's your daddy!" as you turn it into taco filling.  Another added bonus function: opening packages.  How many times have you drawn blood trying to pull plastic molded packaging apart by sticking your fingers into that pathetic starter hole you made with your keys? Cut through it like warm butter with shears, and vengeance shall be yours.  And those grey twisty wires that lash toys to their cardboard inserts (that I can never untwist in the right direction!!)? Snip. Next. 
   Location: Out of reach of children, that's for damn sure.
   
   
3. Superglue
   Everything about this product is scary.  The smell that can kill ornamental housepets, the small "secret serum" vial, the eerily smooth amputee feeling when it dries on your fingertips (oh my god I just melted my fingerprints!)... but oh the misery you can avert with this miracle adhesive once you transform that fear into healthy respect.
   Function: Fix just about anything inanimate your kid can break.  And they only break the toys they love, so it's in every dad's best interest to get that toy back into commission, STAT.  For animate objects such as yourself, superglue can also work wonders, but I'd advise the following to be done by yourself and only to yourself. Remember when John Rambo sewed himself up in First Blood?  If only he had superglue... This stuff seals cuts like you wouldn't believe.  I once sliced open the tip of my index finger with a 9-inch Wustof Chef's Knife. $95 of flesh slicing fury.  A few drops, a quick squeeze to join the parts together and I was good to go.  A daily application for about 4 or 5 days and I was 100%.  Saved a $40 co-pay too.  What an amazing 10x ROI for a $4 tube of glue.
   Location: Wherever you store other household fix-it items. Just be sure to always have an unopened vial on hand because that little red pin-cap never works. The tip will either be helplessly clogged, or the glue will have somehow found a way out, only to meet an untimely hardening, much like Bubbles the goldfish.
   
   
4. Cheap Batteries
   I know, I know... nothing shows you care like a fresh set of Duracells.  I'm not telling you to trust your Kodak moments to second rate 99 Cent Store batteries, but does that yapping, back flipping dog really need to keep going and going?  Exactly.  Load it up with those batteries with the scary cat jumping though the Q or R or whatever that is, and I guarantee your kid will be bored of that toy before you come close to running out of juice.  And no, I don't care if rechargeable batteries are "green." They suck.  They last 15 minutes if you're lucky.  And if you store a fully charged battery for more than 3 hours, it pretty much renders itself useless.  How does the rechargable battery industry live with itself?  
   Function: Provides low-cost sustainable power for dozens of non-essential playthings scattered throughout the house.
   Location: In the toy. But because cheap batteries tend to leak brown goop, take them out whenever possible.  I have an expendable battery shelf where I stockpile used (but not used up) batteries.

Lessons my son has taught me

Nothing like having a kid in the house to recalibrate your perspective on things…

1. Dessert is so much sweeter when you have to earn it by eating all your broccoli.
2. If your favorite song is playing, finish it before getting out of the car.
3. Damn the consequences, getting wet is fun.
4. A good book is worth reading. 20 times.
5. You can never have too many Starbucks napkins in your glove compartment.
6. Having water on hand at all times is good. Knowing where the closest bathroom is at all times is better.
7. A good 15 minute conversation at the end of the night is well worth the equivalent loss of sleep.
8. ‘Tis better to give… but opening gifts is a hell of a lot of fun!
9. To make an omelet, you need to break a few eggs… get chopped ham all over the counter, shredded cheese in the cooking grates and make a royal mess of the kitchen.
10. Superheroes are very necessary. They assure us that good will triumph over evil, whether it has 8 telescopic arms, a posse of mad penguins, or weapons of mass destruction (or not).
11. “The Force” is real. You just have to try harder.
12. Fear is irrational. If that giant bird beak at the aquarium freaks you out, no one’s going to reason you out of it.
13. Leave no fallen toy behind.
14. You can tape a show; daylight, not so easy.
15. You won’t die if you eat something off the floor.
16. You evidently can die from eating cauliflower.
17. Flames make anything cooler, especially bicycle helmets.
18. Be vigilant. You never know when a projectile, fist or forehead (donning aforementioned helmet) will come flying at your crotch.
19. The most excruciating 15 minutes that a parent and child must endure: waiting for the movie to start while being subjected to the same 4 Hollywood trivia questions over and over again.
20. You can have hours of fun in your own backyard playing with toy trucks in a mound of dirt… right next to the beautiful sandbox that dad spent an entire day building, which included hand shoveling playsand, one wheelbarrow-load at a time from his truck. And by the way, he still has residual sand in his truck bed, which has probably been used as a litter box for the past year by neighborhood strays.
     
     
    
     It's ok son, cat poop gives me 'burb cred.
    

How to make your kid a smartass

Teach him Roman numerals.

It started out innocently enough. There’s a children’s song, “18 Wheels on a Big Rig,” by a band called Trout Fishing in America. The entire theme of this song is counting to 18 in different ways: forward, backward, even numbers, odd numbers, and Roman numerals. On paper, you wouldn’t think it amusing, but when you hear “vee, vee eye, vee eye eye, vee eye eye eye, eye ex…wheels on a big rig,” I challenge even the most jaded parent not to laugh.

So, upon witnessing his mom and dad busting up over this song playing on his “XM Kids” station one day, Marcus had to ask. “What’s vee eye vee eye eye?” Not wanting to let a serendipitous educational opportunity slip through our fingers, we conducted an impromptu lesson in basic Roman numerals right there in the car.

To my surprise, Roman numerals are actually quite ubiquitous in our world, as Marcus’ flossing of this newfound knowledge proved. Movie titles, books, instructions, business signs, billboards… he noticed them all and took full advantage of opportunities to validate his knowledge with me. Star Wars DVD covers are apparently a great self-teaching tool – episode “eye” through “vee eye,” make for fun flashcards with mnemonic cues built right in. Bad guy Anakin is on 3, Darth Vader on 5, the “Jedi version” of Luke on 6.

When Marcus turned five earlier this year, he discovered a new application for Roman numerals. When you’re a cute five year old, people will talk to you. And at some point in the conversation, they’ll ask, “how old are you?”

On one such occasion, Marcus held up 2 fingers.

“You’re only two? You’re older than that!”

With an impatient sigh Marcus replied, “You don’t know Roman numerals??”

HAIL CAESAR, BEEEEAAATCH!

 

He’s done this on three separate occasions now, and each time, it even catches me unawares. Getting punk’d  by a toddler is something most people find endearing, even as victims. People laugh and are invariably impressed with this kid’s knowledge and wit. I’ll give him 3 more years before this type of “clever wit” evolves into something that prompts the simple response, “Brat.”

The proper way to stop a nosebleed

I’ve been a huge fan of Bass Pro Shops ever since the fourth grade, when my only interaction with this outdoorsman’s Mecca was limited to creating “if-I-won-the-lottery” lists off their phonebook-sized catalog and indulging in the occasional treat of chatting with the nice southern ladies at 1-800-BASS-PRO, dad’s credit card in hand. Disneyland? No way – my dream vacation was Outdoor World, the Bass Pro Shops headquarters in Springfield, Missouri. Unfortunately, seeing as I was the only one in my family with an affinity for angling, it remained unfulfilled. Bass Pro Shops began opening retail outlets some time ago, and I remember seeing one just outside of Vegas a few years ago, but like the boy in The Giving Tree, this young man had more exciting pursuits in Sin City than to stop in and admire his dream bass boat.

This past weekend, I had the good fortune of discovering the Bass Pro Shops in Rancho Cucamonga, CA on the way back from a family Labor Day trip. I couldn’t pass this up. I gave Lisa a quick primer on Bass Pro Shops and its place in my heart, parked the car, woke Marcus from his backseat nap, heaved him over my shoulder, and did my best to excite a groggy five-year old on this “mega fishing store.” He responded by bleeding all over my shirt.

Shuttling him into the lobby, we did our best to squeeze his nose with the last tissue in Lisa’s bag, quickly reaching its liquid retention capacity. As soon as she spotted this surely familiar scene, a helpful customer service associate offered us more tissues. As she noticed us futilely cramming a new fistful of fresh tissues on Marcus’ nose, she graciously stepped in and instructed us on the proper way to stop a nosebleed.

1. Don’t look up. Look down.
2. Pinch right above the nostrils.
3. Tissue underneath the nose.

No doubt she noticed the initial skeptical look on both our faces. “I’m also a paramedic,” she added with a reassuring smile. That was enough for both of us, as we promptly relinquished control of this mini triage session to her. This nice lady (I wish I got her name), ended up tending to Marcus for the next 5 minutes. Apparently, if you hold your head up (as we have all been taught), you tend to swallow blood, which can upset your stomach, especially if your stomach is child-sized.

When the bleeding stopped, she gave us a wad of backup tissues for later and sent us on our way. We rode bass boats, tried out tents, shot laser rifles at stuffed raccoons, raced in a Dale Jr. NASCAR simulator game, spotted trout in the indoor river and made new wish lists.

 

A day 25 years in the making. And the best part? The nice ladies at Bass Pro Shops are for real.

Epilogue: Marcus’ nose started bleeding again the next night. He skillfully applied the technique and stopped his own nosebleed, no fuss, no mess, no mom and dad running around with bloody tissues.

Teach this phrase

“Due Diligence”

I’ve been using this one ever since Marcus was old enough to point at stuff he wanted. Initially, applying a term associated with corporate acquisitions to selecting a Hot Wheel served no other purpose than to amuse this new dad. Marcus would grab the first one within reach; I’d stop him.

“Hey - due diligence son, due diligence.”

… and I’d hand him another choice to consider, followed by one more. Then we’d move onto Star Wars figures, Power Rangers and not long after that, mom would be done with her shoe shopping. Our stint at the mall would end, and Marcus would have a toy he really liked, with minimal risk of buyer’s remorse (which can seize an unsatiated toddler mind the instant a colorful POP display enters his peripheral vision).

After a few due diligence sessions strategically applied within various scenarios, from picking an ice cream flavor to choosing new underwear, and reinforced with mantra-like repetition (“Due diligence all right! Due diligence yeah, baby! Due diligence nothing escapes your radar!”), my then 3-year old son began to evolve a rudimentary understanding of this investment banker protocol.

Besides basking in the claim to fame that my son was undoubtedly the only 3-year old on earth who knew what this term meant, I also found that Marcus’ internalization of due diligence greatly reduced the dreaded “I changed my mind” loop that plagues every child (and parent). By nature, this loop inevitably results in the child feeling like he settled, and me packing a ridiculous variety of playthings into my backpack in anticipation of a relapse.

However, it wasn’t until my sister took Marcus out for a day that I patted myself on the back for an imprinting job truly well done. Upon dropping him off, she reported to me in a what-the-hell-did-you-do-to-your-son tone that “he picked that souvenir himself after reminding me ‘due diligence, auntie Mei, due diligence…’”