Dad Entry #16

Thanks for the comments. We enjoy them. Feel free; it lets us know at least one person reads the blog (‘one’ happens to be the number of comments we’ve gotten this month I think). Alright then, what’s new? Well, Megan’s more of a chatterbox lately. That’s good; she was maybe a tiny bit language delayed. No worries; she can almost keep up with the rest of us now, griping and carrying on. Although, she does say sweet things once in a while, like, “Hi Daddy” or “Bye Daddy” or “Daddy hold you” or “Daddy Hep” or “Pees Daddy” or “Daddy, pees hep” or “Daddy, dink” or “Daddy, chap-tick,” and so on. FYI, pees = please, hep = help, dink = drink, chap-tick = chapstick. My favorite, though, is most definitely, “Daddy, fix it.” When a toy comes apart or her toy stroller seat comes loose, yep, she knows who to talk to! And if you’re wondering, the answer is ‘yes’ I have, though only once or twice, sabotaged a toy just so she’ll look up at me, hold out the toy, and say, “Daddy, fix it.”

Michael continues to be, well, kind of mean to Megan. It’s tough to admit, and we’re working on it. Though, really, we shouldn’t be that surprised. It was that way for Sara and me, too. Our older siblings were the same as Michael. Cruel. Just kidding! (Sara and I both have only one older sibling; although, in our cases, both are sisters… and both are wonderful, of course.) Megan seems to be more accepting of Michael, handing him toys, sharing, watching and learning from him, talking to him. But he mostly views her as an annoyance, ignoring her and then, when she touches a prized toy of his, he says, “No, Megan!” loudly and takes the toy away from her, yanking it out of her small hands or dashing ahead of her to the spot where he anticipates she’s going to – GASP! – pick up and play with one of his whales, or an instrument, or his favorite book that day.

It’s cute that Megan really likes certain themes or characters that were formerly favorites of Michael’s. For example, Thomas and Percy are making a comeback! And last week I must’ve read the Cars book about ‘Sow-ee and McKeen’ a hundred times to her. Sweetheart. The only thing keeping her from being the perfect daughter – other than the damage she does during temper tantrums – is the fact she still very much prefers her mother. For everything. “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy.” Yeah, yeah, ‘Daddy ain’t nothin’… but he’ll keep tryin’, one of these days you’ll trust him more than Mommy!’

My heart swelled a little this weekend – it was so cute – because of Megan’s response to my taking a chocolate shake away from her. I bought one shake to share after dinner. Sara and I put a nice dent in it, then gave it to Megan. Well, she got after it; the straw would’ve been gurgling in the bottom of an empty cup if we let Megan have it for 30 more seconds. Not to mention the crippling brain freeze Megan was headed for. So it was Michael’s turn. Except, he was busy trying on his Orca costume – and that’s a story for another time, like Halloween. But Michael hadn’t gotten his share of the shake yet. So I took it away from Megan and set it on the banister next to the TV, to wait for Michael. Megan grumbled a little, maybe flailed her arms for a second and kicked at some toys on the floor. But then she was suddenly calm. ‘Hmm,’ I thought, ‘Megan exhibiting a little anger management. Nice.’ But that wasn’t it at all. Megan was in problem solving mode. She trudged all the way to her stool by the fridge, grabbed it, and lugged it all the way over by the TV. The stool is practically bigger than she is. But she got it in place, stepped aboard, then reached up – on her tiptoes – for the shake. She could just barely touch the cup. She couldn’t move it, couldn’t grab it, but she was trying. I think she might’ve fallen off the stool if I hadn’t intervened. I gave her one more sip.