Triple The Dad

Kids are wired all wrong. Even compensating for and taking into consideration the fact that four-year-old children need a strong self preservation mechanism or their little bodies would never make it to adulthood they seem to be wired all wrong. At least mine. Exhibit A. By son, now rapidly approaching five years old, will still sometimes refuse to go down slides. Not the shiny metal, super heated, thigh burning variety, or even some super-deluxe, twisty turny, five-story high monstrosity; just a simple, single turn, plastic one at the local Burger King. Ok, you say, maybe he is afraid of heights or the fall. Which I'd totally buy as an explanation, except he has no problem standing on his dinner chair, then happily jumping onto his sister's chair. Exhibit B. My other son nearly melted down during a recent climb up a playground at the Crayola Experience. He climbed his way up one of those climbing towers every  playground seems to have. About three quarters of the way u...

One small step for Rand; one big step for independence. "No, No, No.  Me," my son says as he tries to span a gap that seems impossibly large for his little, flip-flop clad feet. "Alright, son, I'm just minding the gap." As much as the refutation of my help hurt on some level, I loved his independence in this moment.  Of course there was a chance he would get hurt.  He was three feet up on a metal play set crossing a gap he probably had no business crossing. To me, this was a prime position for him to lose balance, topple over and bang his head on the metal play set.  Probably multiple times.  Have I mentioned its metal? He wobbled and my hand reflexively grasped at his shirt. Again the words came, this time with a swipe at my shirt-filled hand; the turn required for this rejection of Daddy unbalanced him more than anything he had done. "No, No, No." "Ok.  I'm just here for you if you fall." Of course, if he fell, I...