Boys will be… boys!

There’s no denying it, boys is troubles.

If they’re not fighting over some silly toy or which TV programme to watch, they’re arguing with us, the wife and I.

It doesn’t necessarily matter what I’m actually talking about, as you, the reader, can simply pick an element of ‘life’, and use that in the imagination part of this blog post. For instance, they’ll argue and scream blue-murder about something as trivial as whether there’s too much water in their cup, or the food is too hot/cold, or whether there’s too much or too little on their plate to eat.

Ignoring the fact that whatever they are actually arguing about, the ‘problem’ itself could be rectified immediately, but they insist on dragging things out, as tired little boys do.

All of this arguing, to’ing and fro’ing, has made me remember-back to how things were when I was their ages, and how life was different in some ways.  It’s difficult to stop one’s self from this, and I’m sure I’m only remembering the bits I want to remember, but nonetheless, I’m still dragging myself back all those year, for the simple sake of comparison.

Yes, we all argued, me and my brother, Russell, or my and my sister, Emma. Or Emma and Russell, or any other combination of the three of us against each other.  We fought, screamed and argued our way through the foundation years of our lives, which has inadvertently become the Brett Rigby Benchmark, used for the comparisons of life mentioned above.

We were probably no different to how Jack and Oliver are now, in that we, too, were very spoilt little children who had almost EVERYTHING we could dream for and more, and had no idea about the values of things… as children don’t.

Our parents worked. They bought us lots of things, and we didn’t go without.  They’re in the same boat.

But the other thing I keep reminding myself about, is that we’ve not done this whole ‘parenting’ thing before, and there’s no manual that helps.  As an IT geek, there are rules for making things work; but life ain’t that easy. And so, we’re trying to find out how to do this for ourselves. 

By and large, we’re doing ok with it – not amazingly, like people dream and envisage whilst the lady is still carrying, but ok.  We have our good days, but we’re probably outweighed with our days of late, in shouting at an angry, argumentative (spoilt) child. 

Of course, we want to do the best we can, and Claire and I are always talking about something that’s recently happened, and what we can do as parents to fix it, or make sure it doesn’t happen again, etc. We spend nights awake talking about this stuff, but sometimes I think it’s also a little of Jack/Oliver learning for themselves, too.  They’re learning the same boundaries that I did as a child; they’re learning that bad things mean good things are sent away for a bit; they’re learning who they are too, just as I did.

So, maybe boys will be boys, but we’re trying to help them learn from the mistakes we made in the past too, and sometimes, they need to make mistakes for themselves in the first place.

"Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies"

So, I’ve got two boys. ‘Chalk’ Rigby and ‘Cheese’ Rigby.

Jack…
Simply. Cannot. Lie.

He tries; once he's thought about it for a moment, but then messes it up. We even got thrown off of a water slide at Center Parcs because Jack ‘fessed up at the wrong moment, after I told the slide-man at the top that he’d been on it before, despite being under the funny minimum height-measuring stick by a smidgeon.  So, it was the swimming pool walk of shame, right down past all the others, each then doubting their own ability to ride.

Master Oliver, however, has definitely got the 'little boy gene' for telling porkies. Sometimes it's just over embellishment, which as adults normally happens with your mates having a pint in the pub. But this kid's certainly a ‘live wire’.

Outright and not bothered, I'll see him do something, whether it's whack Jack or throw something, and then flat-out lie about it, to my face. Then, later, he'll then believe his version of events, fictitious of course, and then we'll have a repeat argument/discussion about it. 

I always had a good imagination, and this probably helped/hindered me and my lying ability as a child (don’t check this my folks!) and this is probably just what Oli is doing. It’s just the blatant-ness of it all which is amusing, but not helpful if you need to tell him off at the same time!!  Little snot.

Teeth (or lack of!)

So, Jack is (finally!) at that age where his teeth are starting to fall out.

Not because of them being gammy or manky or anything like that, but thanks for thinking it, all the same.

No, but instead, his teeth are being muscled-out by other bigger, newer, stronger teeth; ones that might last for his entire life, instead of these mamby-pamby baby ones that have only managed about 7 years. Pfft.

In the past couple of weeks, his fourth tooth has finally come out. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, except the third and fourth teeth were buddies and were the ones that usually greeted you during a smile; yes, I am badly referring to the two front teeth, at the top. These bad-boys are no more. (Well, unless you're the tooth fairy!!)

Whistling and lisp'ing is common place at the moment, and I'm sure that he'll just get used to them not being there, and the new ones will show up late to the party.

Of course, Oliver is a little jealous and can't understand why his teeth aren't yet falling out. He'll say something, pronounce it incorrectly, and when I correct him, he immediately blames his loose teeth, that he doesn't have.

Bubble Guns

Oliver is now two, and is perfectly aged for potty training.

Or so we thought.

He’s had and understood the idea about weeing into a potty or toilet for a little while now, but we’ve been struggling to convince him about the poos.  He even ask for a nappy, such that he’d then toddle-off into a quiet corner somewhere to think. And to squeeze one out. And just for kicks at seeing his mum or dad having to clear it up, I’m sure the little monster squashes it in a little by sitting down a bit, such that’s stuck to his bum cheeks and smeared all over.

So, of course, we reverted to what any self-respecting parent would do.

Bribery.

Oh yes. And if you’re a parent that’s never bribed your child, then I call you liar.  Except, clever parents these days put a positive spin on it, and call it “positive reinforcement”, or something like that. Bribery, plain and simple, and it works.

Claire bought a (cheap) battery-powered, bubble-blowing gun from the supermarket. Quiet clever, that you screw a bottle of bubble mixture to the butt of the gun and theoretically, pull the trigger to find bubbles galore.

Well, as this was the bribery device, it sat on the high shelf in it’s packaging and out of reach, and when Oliver was sitting on the toilet, we’d tell him about this gun, teasing and taunting. Erm, I mean, positively reinforcing the notion of a child-friendly bubble-producing firearm.  And he’d respond, asking for it, because we’re grown ups and are really good at describing toys in a carrot/stick manner and he’d be convinced that he needed it, sometimes to the point of tears.

But there’d always be a little sadness when he wouldn’t ‘produce’, so to speak, and we’d end up with the phrase of ‘no poo, no gun’. Heck, I’d buy him five more if he’d have just poo’d a little chip out. But no. Stubborn-minded, just like… his mum. Or his Grandad Garry.

Each time, every 30 or so minutes we’d take him to the toilet and dangle him over it so that he wouldn’t fall in (again - ha ha haaaaa!), asking nicely and politely for a poo, but producing a wee, and so we’d keep up with the taunts. And reinforcements.  Or whatever.

But then when my mum was about to go, after having them whilst we were both at work, Oli came running into me, with the removable insert to the potty from the lounge (yes, lounge – they’re *everywhere*) saying “dad – look!”.

Obviously, seeing what you know to be an important piece from a potty-jigsaw being carried by a small child, you have to assume the worst and panic. Like, headless-chicken almost, thinking it’s brimming full of child-wee and probably already sloshed over the sofa and half of the dog. Panic.

I took this off like he had handed me an unexploded grenade or something, only to find its contents were not that liquid and runny, but full of what I can only describe as ‘curly man-poo’, and from that phrase alone, I’m sure you’ll already have a perfect picture sewn neatly into your brain as to what I’ll remember for years to come.

Yes. Indeed. The boy had poo’d and poo’d like a trooper.

And what did he say next?

“Bubble gun!”

I rest my case.

He’s FOUR years old!

\An obvious thing to say, but yes, I’m starting to comprehend this.

I think I have been comparing Jack to Oliver, and have probably been expecting a little too much of Jack.

Maybe it was around when Oliver was born, I think that we started to treat Jack like he was a bit older than he was, as you could converse with him, play games with him and get him to do the odd menial task, too.

As Oliver hasn’t really mastered the art of sleeping yet, the wife and I are sort of struggling to survive of late. I, certainly, have been probably putting a little too much on Jack, expecting him to understand the problems that we’re dealing with, and then get disappointed with Jack when he acts… like a four year old.

This morning was pretty bad. I had little sleep, and was fairly grumpy to Jack when he comes into the spare room where I had been sleeping, saying that his Lego-man torch had strangely had an arm amputation in the night. It wasn’t that he came in and woke me, as I’m a fairly light sleeper and heard him clamber out of bed. It was more that it was 05:30 in the morning and we had agreed just the other night that he wouldn’t get out of bed before 06:10.

Again, I must have assuming that Jack had a) remembered our conversation, b) thought to check the time before leaving his room and c) joined the dots together enough to think about what I had been doing during the night.  Never going to happen really, was it?

Because…. he’s four.

And being four, he didn’t respond in the most positive reaction to my miserable state of mind. We ended up arguing, resulting in me threatening to stop Jack from going to swimming or to his beloved Karate lessons.

Again, I was reminded that he is just four years old,by my conscience (Claire), leaving me feeling quite bad about it all. And yes, I was the bigger man and apologised to him as best I could.

I’ve spent the day thinking about it and made sure that he was in a happy mood this evening before going to bed, as he doesn’t need to care about anything other than being a four year old boy.

Because he’s four.

There’s a giant in my car!

Claire and I have both suddenly noticed that this little crying ball of poo that we brought home from the hospital has actually grown. Lots.

I noticed when Jack and I were in my car, and he was strapped into his car seat; I looked around and saw that there was now this… child sitting there in the back, and not the shrivelled up baby that I remember being in there once.

Jack says she notices that he’s grown when she lays him on the changing table, as he nearly fills the length of it.

Having said that, he’s not over-big for his size, I don’t think. But his size/height is certainly put into perspective when he’s around other children! Our friends came over a little while ago with their son and daughter, and that’s when I noticed Jack was dinky compared to these older two.

For me, it’s a lot more fun now that he has grown and can do/say more.  Like going to the big play places, filled with padded climbing frames, ball pools, slides and more.  I’ve wanted to go before, and thought about borrowing someone else’s child just for that, but it’s really good that Jack likes it, although I end up sweating and more worn out than Jack does, as I have to constantly chase him around the climbing frames, as he gets easily bowled over by bigger kids running mad around, and to stop him from randomly jumping down great heights.  And to stop him from attacking other kids when they’re playing with something that he wants.  Little monster.

When we’re in the car, he’s much more aware of what’s around him, and can spot a tractor a mile away, even if it’s in a field perpendicular to the road we’re travelling on. “TRAC-TOR!” is what comes shouting from the back of the car!  Good eyes.