Daddy's Fish BowlA Clear View Of A Father's Family Experiences

Happy Father’s Day everyone! Man it feels great celebrating the thing that means most to me in this world, fatherhood.  What better way to start off such as great day than telling you guys a wacky tale about one of my kids? Well here ya go, enjoy!

So summer is officially here! Yayyyy, pull out the sunglasses, sun screen, and swimming trunks.  For the most part, the summertime offers a welcome change of pace to standard activities and routines, but for us, it has offered an unexpected and unwelcomed consequence. Most families are typically excited about this time of year and are making plans for various activities.  Well our family is making plans, but instead of beach outings and day trips, we’re planning toddler disaster relieve tactics and beefing up our temper tantrum diversion techniques.  You may be saying to yourself: “kids love summer, what problems could you possibly have because of the summertime?”  Well let me tell you, when you’re dealing with a Terrorist Two’s all-star such as Tre (Shoutout to @Tdubb28), the simplest action can turn life into a nightmare that lasts an entire season.  ***sidebar: notice I did not use the term terrible two’s, no Tre has transcended typical two year old antics and as if he was playing Modern Warefare 2 has been promoted to rank of Terrorist!*** That action was  as I stated a VERY simple one, all we did was open his window one day.  Little did we know, the act of opening his window would end up haunting us for many nights… and mornings… and now that I think of it afternoons too.

It all started about a month ago, you know the time period when it’s warm enough to open the windows, but the temperature hasn’t quite reached a point where the AC is necessary?  Well that’s when this tale begins.  One day Fefe opened all of the windows in the house to let the cool breeze flow in, when it was time for Tre’s nap neither of us thought anything of it that his window was still open, BIG MISTAKE.  I still have hellish dreams of that day up until this very point.  Needless to say, Tre didn’t take a nap that day.  He was too busy looking out the window and talking to inanimate objects. Every so often we’d hear things in the monitor such as: “Bye Bye birdie, awwwk awwwk” (Tre’s bird impersonation) or “ooooh big read truck, drive truck”.  We didn’t think much of it, maybe he wasn’t tired that day, or something along those lines.  Well it wasn’t until bedtime that we realized this was going to be a HUGE issue.

Bedtime rolls around and we perform our typical nightly ritual which consists of: story time, a glass of milk, and saying goodnight to all the stuffed animals.  As soon as we head downstairs to enjoy our kid free zone, we hear screaming and hollering in the monitor and promptly rush upstairs.  When I get there, Tre is sitting in his bed screaming “I WANT” while pointing at his window.  I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what he wanted, so I called in the expert, Fefe.  She quickly surveyed the situation and used her deductive powers to determine that he wanted his window up.  Again, totally oblivious to how serious this issue would be, I chalked it up to his room being warm and we wanted some fresh air in order to go to sleep. No harm done,  window open, good night!

Well I should have adopted our country’s “we don’t negotiate with terrorist” policy and taken a stand that very first day.  As you all know, terrorists don’t back down easily and once those warm days turned to cool ones, and it was necessary to close the windows, we were met with fierce opposition.  If that window wasn’t up, our house turned into tantrum town and I chose deception as my tactic to deal with it.  I figured, I’ll let him think he’s winning, I’ll open the window and when he falls asleep I’ll just come in here and close it.  Yeah, well that wasn’t such a bright idea, especially when at 2:30am all you hear is a constant tune consisting of three words “Daddy, window up”.  For the most part, the close it after he’s sleep method will get us through the night and he’ll demand his window to be opened first thing in the morning, but those few midnight awakenings make me wish his room never had a window.

He’d typically spend 5-10 mins looking out the window and talking to birds and trees before laying down and going to sleep.  That is until the unthinkable happened, someone actually responded to him.  Our neighbor was leaving and he was in the window and spotted her.  I heard him say “get in your car and go bye bye” through the monitor; I heard a muffled response from outside our door and then heard an explosive laugh from Tre, followed by 90 seconds of giddy gibberish.  He didn’t go to sleep for at least 2 hours after she pulled off.  Now, thanks to that encounter, he spends up to an hour in his window before bed, waiting and hoping to spot someone to talk to.  So people, I implore you, if you’re walking down the street and see a little child in their window attempting to talk to you, just ignore them.  Please, for their parent’s sanity, just walk on by!!!!

I think we’ve learned to live with the way things are for now, other than the high electricity bills (AC on, open window), but I’m totally afraid of what to expect when fall approaches.  Hopefully he’ll be a bit older and understand the concept of freezing to death, but I’m not to confident that it will even matter.