Friday, June 02, 2006
It's Official! I'm a Father!
When my son was born last year, I started questioning whether he was actually my child. Unlike me, he had blond hair and blue eyes. I wasn't TOO surprised since The Wife has blond hair and blue eyes. But except for my toes and ears, he really didn't have any traits that I could definitively say come from me. Now that he's in the toddler room at daycare, though, I can proudly say that Luke is in fact my son. No DNA test required.
My family is well-known for being, shall we say, "less than subtle." When we were kids, we fought a lot. We were outspoken and obnoxious. We didn't ask permission and we didn't share. We were hellions. (In all fairness, not much has changed, except for our height. And that hasn't changed much anyway.) It turns out that Luke is developing the same (wonderful) personality traits.
(It should be noted that The Wife came from a more idyllic family. There was little fighting or tomfoolery between her and her brother. Her mom was quite overwhelmed when she first encountered my niece and nephews. Quite rambunctious, they are. And she was not prepared for that. By the way, there needs to be a term for "nieces and nephews." I've long been a proponent of "niephews," but I'm willing to listen to alternatives.)
Luke spent the first 15 months of his life in the "infant room" at daycare. It was a great place for him to develop, but since he started walking at 10 months, he quickly got bored in that room. So we were thrilled to find out that he'd be entering the "toddler room," which consists of children from 15 to 30 months of age. What we didn't realize was that our little, darling child would quickly become the bully of the class, despite being one of the smallest children.
Apparently, Luke will walk up to other kids and push them down. Or he'll grab ahold of them and push/pull them. Or he'll grab things right out of their hands. He doesn't care. If he sees something, he takes it. If someone's in his way, he gets them out of his way. It doesn't matter if the kid is bigger than him. (It's quite possible that Luke has even worse depth-perception than I do. He might not realize that these kids are actually bigger than him. He might just think that they're really close.) And the only form of retaliation that the other kids have discovered so far is biting. And so for the second time in as many weeks, Luke's come home with bite marks all over his arms.
I know that we have to teach Luke to share and to be more civil to other children. But that's a little difficult because he doesn't have anyone to share with or be civil to. The Wife takes him to playgroups, so hopefully he'll learn to behave better at those. Otherwise, I guess I'm going to have to start biting him until he learns his lesson.
My family is well-known for being, shall we say, "less than subtle." When we were kids, we fought a lot. We were outspoken and obnoxious. We didn't ask permission and we didn't share. We were hellions. (In all fairness, not much has changed, except for our height. And that hasn't changed much anyway.) It turns out that Luke is developing the same (wonderful) personality traits.
(It should be noted that The Wife came from a more idyllic family. There was little fighting or tomfoolery between her and her brother. Her mom was quite overwhelmed when she first encountered my niece and nephews. Quite rambunctious, they are. And she was not prepared for that. By the way, there needs to be a term for "nieces and nephews." I've long been a proponent of "niephews," but I'm willing to listen to alternatives.)
Luke spent the first 15 months of his life in the "infant room" at daycare. It was a great place for him to develop, but since he started walking at 10 months, he quickly got bored in that room. So we were thrilled to find out that he'd be entering the "toddler room," which consists of children from 15 to 30 months of age. What we didn't realize was that our little, darling child would quickly become the bully of the class, despite being one of the smallest children.
Apparently, Luke will walk up to other kids and push them down. Or he'll grab ahold of them and push/pull them. Or he'll grab things right out of their hands. He doesn't care. If he sees something, he takes it. If someone's in his way, he gets them out of his way. It doesn't matter if the kid is bigger than him. (It's quite possible that Luke has even worse depth-perception than I do. He might not realize that these kids are actually bigger than him. He might just think that they're really close.) And the only form of retaliation that the other kids have discovered so far is biting. And so for the second time in as many weeks, Luke's come home with bite marks all over his arms.
I know that we have to teach Luke to share and to be more civil to other children. But that's a little difficult because he doesn't have anyone to share with or be civil to. The Wife takes him to playgroups, so hopefully he'll learn to behave better at those. Otherwise, I guess I'm going to have to start biting him until he learns his lesson.
