BEEP BEEP BEEP Apparent Parent is busy parenting and can't come to the Web right now

Sometimes you just get too busy parenting to write about parenting.

The cute gummy smile of our two-month old.
He's our fourth child and helps make sure
Mommy and Daddy don't get any alone time.
Totally worth it.

This pretty well explains my life for the last - let me check - seven months without posting a single thing to the blog. Since I've written we've added a fourth child to our family, and I'll be darned if that little kid's not a handful. Not to mention cute little No. 3. She continues to be our mischief maker. She'll even admit it sometimes: "What are you doing?" we'll call out to her.

"I making mischief. It's OK, I put it back." She's two years old with the mind of a convict. In fact, that's one of her nicknames, among many others.

Avoiding "Sanctuaries of misbehavior" for children

A grocery store is one place that can be a sanctuary for misbehavior.
The key is to not allow any behavior you wouldn't at home.

It is easier to enforce family rules when you're in your element. When we are at home, we can deal with individual situations consistently every time. It is easy to set boundaries and let children deal with the consequences.

However, grocery stores, church and even our home when guests visit can become "sanctuaries of misbehavior" unless we, as parents, are consistent with our parenting guidelines even there. In other words, children can figure out you may not be able to discipline them the same way during church as you would at home. Indeed, they figure out they can get away with things they couldn't get away with at home. They test their boundaries in all situations.

For instance, I recently shattered my kneecap, article forthcoming. Since this happened, I have had to adapt my parenting style a little since I cannot always move to enforce discipline. My wife and I began to notice the kids weren't as quick to obey me since they knew I wouldn't chase them down and help make it happen if they didn't obey quickly. Some would probably term their behavior "running wild."

Maybe sometimes the correction for misbehavior will have to come after the fact. For instance, a friend of ours taught us to use "reverent practice." When the children misbehave in church, whether it be by attempting to wander the aisles, crawl under the pews, or backflipping off the pulpit, we for a while had reverent practice when we got home. This also happened after irreverent prayers or family home evenings. In reverent practice, we place the children in chairs and have them fold their arms, put their feet in front of their chair, not fidget, and remain quiet. Until they do, they remain on the chair. The contest of wills isn't always short, but it has been effective in teaching our kids to remain reverent during the appropriate times. Now, we rarely have to discipline during or after church.

We also have a zero-tolerance standpoint for noise. If they make an unholy racket in Sacrament meeting, we escort them to the foyer, where - this is important - they stay on our lap or we hold them, aloft from anything that could be considered fun. Otherwise they would view these forays to the foyer as a reward for being loud during a dry talk. The lap approach probably won't be appropriate with teenagers, so it's best to start early so you don't have to when that time comes.

How many times have you seen a child screaming their head off in a grocery store, fully knowing the embarrassment they are causing, while you can't take the established recourses from home like timeout or sending them to a room or whatever to scream their lungs out? What can you do about this? Exit the store immediately. Go to the car. Sit the child in their carseat. Return to the store only when they have calmed down. I've also had to use the car approach for midnight screaming sessions or naughty children once we've reached the lap/foyer stage at church.

If children can sense the boundaries are always in place, no matter the locale, they will modify their behavior eventually to fall in line with expectations, unless they are stubborn or discipline has remained unenforced for too long.

What do you do to avoid sanctuaries of misbehavior for your children?

Seven pounds of perfection: Welcoming a new baby to the world

Who wouldn't want toes this perfect?

Perfect.

I can think of no better way to describe my new daughter to you. One word encompasses so much I can't even fathom it. Her tiny toe bubbles make my heart melt. The dimples on the back of her hands make my mouth form a silent "Ohhh" when she's sleeping in my arms. The dimples on her chubby face are even better.

She already has more hair than me, but that's because of this. Her dark hair is a departure from the two blondies I started out with. I love it. After three days with her as a part of my life, I love her in ways only a parent can understand. As my mother puts it, our daughter came into the world "trailing clouds of glory." The clouds were tailing her with good reason. How can you beat perfection?

She represents all that is important to me. We come into life perfect. We strive to leave it perfect. We just mar the perfection along the way. It is sad to me that at some point in the future, my daughter will be less than perfect. It kills me to know that choices she will someday make will cause those clouds of glory return to heaven to follow the next perfect baby down instead.

This thought makes me want to be a better man. How could I possibly let her become less than perfect? How can I keep her as perfect as possible without attaining perfection myself? In a major irony, I hold in my arms a perfect example of all that we should be. As the parent, I should be the example. But that's like trying to be an example to Christ himself. She'll learn from me. No doubt about that. She'll love me. I'll make sure of that. She will love playing with her daddy. I've already set the precedent there with my first two kids.

But she'll see my shortcomings, because I still have plenty. I cannot think of a stronger motivator for repentance and striving to live a perfect life than holding seven pounds of perfection in my arms. Her heavy eyelids rarely open, but that doesn't keep me from being able to see the halo blazing above her head. When she does manage to prop her eyes open, I can't believe the depth of life I see in her. Newborns are just that: newly born. They have a minuscule, uncoordinated body, but looking into their eyes tells it is not the beginning of all they know. Just a new beginning. A new body. A fresh start. Perfection, for a while.

We all have the chance to attain perfection, or else there wouldn't be a commandment telling us to be perfect. We have all been perfect at some point. There is no reason we cannot attain that again. We just have to work at it a lot harder than those babies who just crossed the veil.

Fatherhood and motherhood are the fastest, most effective ways to achieve that. With three kids, I can assure you I haven't attained perfection, but as a parent you get a small glimpse into what God sees. And that is worth a trillion sermons. If a picture speaks a thousand words and a toddler speaks a hundred words, a baby preaches the whole gospel just by coming to your home. All from seven pounds of purity.

Definition of an Apparent Parent AKA Jungle Gym Parents Unite!

Being an "apparent parent" means involving
your children, no matter how tired it
makes you - and the children.

When my kids are awake, my 6-foot-5 frame converts into monkey bars, a climbing rope, a jungle gym, a slide, a rocking horse (or a walking horse if I'm not too tired), a swing set, a particle accelerator and more. The short way of saying that is my kids crawl all over me as a substitute for the playground I won't buy them. Within a few seconds of walking through the door from work most nights, my daughter will usually say, "I want a ride," while my son says, "I want to wrestle you on my bed."

Oddly, these things cannot be done simultaneously. So I do them in rapid succession. I swing the children onto my back and begin the grueling crawl into their bedroom. I start in the carpeted living area but soon transition to the wooden portion of the floor which leads down the long hall - haul? - to their bedroom. My knees refuse to participate in this part. I weigh 200+ pounds without two kids clinging to my back, neck and shoulders while draping their security blankets across my vision. So the added weight and awkwardness of balancing two children that have known how to walk for less time than it took Lady Gaga to burn her hideous name and personality into the soul of America makes it uncomfortable to crawl on wood in my customary shorts.

That was definitely a run-on sentence. But I like it.

So I end up scurrying down the hall in a bear crawl (anyone remember those from football practice?) with my homemade weight set clinging to my back or face as the case may be. It's great calisthenics, but it's tiring. Then I dump both kids on my son's bed and proceed to wrestle with the children. This usually involves me tossing the kids around like crash test dummies while they laugh uncontrollably. Then when I stop, they ruthlessly tackle me until I start again. Then, when I tire of the crash-test routine - heaven knows they never do - I break out the "spiders." My hands turn into the spindly little creatures that have to crawl all over the most ticklish parts of the children. More laughter comes between statements like "I want to squish the spiders!" coming from the kids.

Why play on the playground when you have a
perfectly good daddy to slide down, tumble on,
tackle, swing around on and harass?

Then we'll often move into Jack-and-the-Beanstalk mode. This is where one kid is the giant and the rest of us are Jack cowering under a blanket so the giant won't find us. In fact, it was during one of these games that my daughter learned one of her first words before she even turned 9 months old. "Hide, hide, hide, hide," she would say with a grin as we draped blankets over our head. Nowadays, it's more like a frantic, "Daddy, we need to hide so brother won't eat us."  And as we get under the blanket, brother comes stomping in roaring, "Fee, fi, fo, fum, I smell the blood of an English bum. Be he alive or be he dead, I'll grind his bones to make my bread." I'm always surprised how much violence he can get behind those words. Then after he tackles my head (always my head - particularly annoying when you wear glasses) under the blankets, the kids switch positions and the game repeats itself until the kids tire or figure out something else that's fun to do.

Anyway, that kind of rough-and-tumble interaction just doesn't happen with every parent out there. And I think it's important. Heck, I'm the first to admit that it's easier to watch TV, play a video game, bust out a sudoku book or build a nuclear reactor with your thumbs duct taped together than be an "apparent parent." But interacting, talking and showing love by just paying attention to the little critters is what makes someone an "apparent parent." It is obvious that I am the parent of my children. I still have my fair share of "not right nows" and "wait a minute, Daddy's talking to Mommy"s, but my kids know they can generally get my attention if they want it.

My dad once told me something that is way too true in many instances. He said, "Mothers cook, clean, play, color with crayons, change diapers, read books, sing songs, teach lessons and generally interact with their children all day. Fathers are vaguely aware there's some little people running around the house."

I don't want to be that kind of father. An "apparent parent" will be called "Daddy" by his children long after his children's friends have stopped calling their parents by that sacred title. I don't want to be father or dad. I want to be "Daddy." A lot of love comes through in that word. An "apparent parent" knows what's happening in their kid's life. Kids are an integral part of that parent's life. Some parents would rather they never had children. An "apparent parent" loves the fact that he has someone to call him "Daddy."

What does "apparent parent" mean to you?

The parental definition of "sleeping in"

As I rolled out of bed at 5:30 a.m. to go help the pitter-pattering feet downstairs use the potty, I was surprisingly thankful for the sleep-in.

Yes, I called 5:30 a "sleep-in." Lately, the bare feet have been running down the hall at between 2 and 4 in the morning, so 5:30 was a blessed reprieve. I hope the day comes when 11 is a sleep-in again, but I think that's not really plausible considering I'm going to relinquish all nighttime sleeping rights to my wife when our third child comes in June. Putting that differently, I'd say she'll have smaller matters to worry about at 2 a.m. when my charges escape for potty breaks. In even other words, she has refused to take a rotation on the other kids at night when she'll be the only one capable of feeding the smallest one.

So I will now be in the position of parental graveyard shift every night, just like wifey. Woohoo!

Luckily, a recent adjustment we made has helped with the night wanderers. I found that most nights the children were more thirsty than anything, so I started leaving a glass of water by our daughter's bed. Unfortunately, that just exchanged one problem - water breaks - for another problem - potty breaks. Ah, the joys of parenthood.

So how do you help your 2- and 3-year olds sleep through the night?

Anytime Potty Training

Middle-of-the-night potty training is not made brighter by the
blinding colors of inane children books.

I tackle this topic reluctantly (can you tackle something with reluctance?) But as I was falling asleep on the bathroom floor at 4 a.m. the other morning I realized there are certain things to be aware of when potty training.

The chief among these is “let the kid go when she wants to go.” Unfortunately, that meant for me getting tackled (no reluctance) at 4 a.m. by a little girl wanting to use the potty. It was my night to be “middle-of-the-night parent,” so after rolling out of bed onto my knees I tackled my fatherly duties (reluctance.)

Escorting her to the bathroom, I found out she didn’t actually have to go. She just wanted to break a little wind while I read her inane book after inane book. Being confronted by a sunny, happy pile of Care Bear and Strawberry Shortcake books in the middle of the night is only a slight upgrade from waking up with a kink in your neck, a massive headache and a toothpick doused in cinnamon oil in your eye — don’t ask me how I know this.*

After 20 minutes of reading the lousiest trash I’ve ever read accompanied by pictures so bright they’d make an owl lose its night vision, I finally left the princess to her own devices on her pearly white throne. On the tile floor — at least it’s heated — I rolled into a fetal position and balled up my daughter’s silky pink blanket for a pillow.

Just as I got comfortable, an indignant shout roused me. “Daddy! You forgot to read that one!” My eyes fluttered open to see an accusing, miniature finger pointing at the last Care Bear book on the once sizable unread-potty-book pile.

That’s when I decided she was done tootin’ on the potty for the night. Motivated by sheer hatred for Love-A-Lot Bear, I plucked my daughter off the porcelain and paraded her back to her bedroom.

After this definitive action, I was sure to have peace the rest of the night. Until she wanted water, of course. Her shouts for water soon woke up her brother, who shares a bedroom with her. So when I rushed back downstairs to literally pour water on the shouting fire, I was welcomed by my son wandering out of the room. Through a thick haze, he said, “Daddy, her wants water.”

“Oh, great,” I said, not unaware of her loud desire for liquid.

I ended up spending the rest of the night awake with my kids, the whole time wishing to be asleep. They didn’t seem to share the sentiment. All because of potty training. The good news is that the porcelain princess is making impressive progress. The fact we are willing to drop anything to let her use the bathroom has made it possible for her to see how easy it can be and how important it is.

We started potty training only a couple weeks ago, and she is already sleeping dry through most nights, and makes it through most days without accidents. I find many of the accidents that do occur happen when she and I are in the throes of wrestling or some other full-attention activity. She just forgets she needs to go when she’s having fun.

She doesn’t, as you might have guessed, forget when it happens in the middle of the night. I get woken up at all hours to escort her to Pottyville. For me, this usually means sleepless nights while she thinks of every excuse in the book to get out of going back to sleep.

After a particularly trying potty experience at 2:30 the other morning, she came up to our room after two separate trips asking for water and her blankie to tell me she had a boogie on her finger she needed wiped off. I laughed despite being dead tired.

“You seriously came all the way up here to tell me that?” I asked.

“Yes,” came the timid reply, her eyes downcast.

I took care of the problem and sent her packing. She stopped in the doorway of our room and stood there for a few long moments, as if not sure she wanted to leave. After staring at her feet and then me for a while, she finally asked, “Daddy? Can I have rock-a-byes?”

The cuteness was just too much. I took her down to our comfy recliner where I cuddled the night away with my beautiful little potty-trained daughter.

As much as I hate some of the inconvenience of letting her go when she wants to, it has been miraculous to see how much just letting her go when she asks has helped. And for three short months until we meet our next daughter, this house will be gloriously diaper free.

*If you must know, I’ve experienced the kinked neck and headache, but only have an overactive imagination to consult on the toothpick.

What's your favorite potty training trick?