Adventures Of Fatherhood

Adventures Of Fatherhood

There’s been too much dancing at the house for me.

Anytime music comes on at the house Carson demands in his own non-verbal way for his mom and dad to join him in busting a move.

It doesn’t even have to be a song. It can be a television jingle, a toy making some sort of sound, the theme song to his favorite show “Max & Ruby”, a vehicle driving by with music blaring or a customized phone ring.

Whatever the case, when he gets the itch to move, he is going to be grabbing and pulling on hands and demanding a dance partner. If we are not immediately accommodating, he will even break into a spell of “cryning” (a term I fabricated to reflect the rare and annoying sound that merges crying and whining).

For his sake, I must say Carson has some decent moves and clearly has some rhythm. His “go-to” move by far is some high-stepping knees and some hand clapping. It’s quite funny to watch but there’s no question it’s on beat and quite addictive. Pam and I have both found ourselves emulating him when he wants some company dancing in our living room.

Nearby, of course, his big brother tries to put his little brother down.

“That’s not dancing Carson. You can’t just lift your legs up and clap, that’s not dancing,” he has said on several occasions.

Beckett then proceeds to show him what dancing is, at least in his mind. He hits the floor and does his version of break dancing, thrashing about and spinning body parts in all sorts of direction.

That’s equally funny but there will no mimicking of that, no matter how hard Beckett tries to get me to do it. That would put me on the disabled list.

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One of my most favorite sights these days is looking into the video monitor and seeing my 3-year-old lying in his bed flipping through a book.

Carson’s seamless transition to his “big boy” bed from the crib has been remarkable. With his older brother, it took weeks before he was content on his own in his room. We had to go to great lengths to make him comfortable and to convince him to stay in his bed.

That was simply not the case at all with Carson, who has been quite impressive, and has been known to handle adjustments well. Previously, he had no problem when the pacifier was taken away or with self-feeding. It’s just his personality to deal with whatever comes his way and not to make a stink over much.

Most nights he gets tucked in, reads (term loosely used here, of course) some books to himself and falls asleep.

On one particular night, Pam went into his room one night because he passed out while looking through a book. Since it was covering his face, she was bothered. The only problem there was he woke up when she moved it away from his face, and it took him a couple hours to fall back asleep.

Even on nights when he is not ready to turn in immediately, he rarely cries. He just plays with his toys on the floor before returning to his makeshift nest on the floor (he still will not sleep in his bed) and tucking himself back in.

I love his independence.
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Words can carry an impact, and Beckett has learned that at an early age.
During an early morning the other day, my oldest son hit me where it hurts.

After reviewing his breakfast that morning, he requested one of his favorite meals. When I told him we didn’t have all the ingredients, he said, “If you didn’t work so much, you would have time to go to the store and buy me some cinnamon.”

Hearing that from my 4-year-old shocked me. It had me stammering for a comeback that would have equal influence on my 4-year-old. Fortunately, reminding myself I am supposed to be the mature one here, I just bit my tongue and explained why people work, how I never work on the weekends, how I enjoy what I do (on most days) and how he benefits from it on several levels.

As you can imagine, he had little interest in hearing any of that. What 4-year-old would?

Rather than French toast and a banana on this particularly morning, Beckett was demanding “banana boats”, which is basically sliced banana wheels with peanut butter and cinnamon. It’s quite tasty actually.

Usually, Beckett is pretty laidback about what he eats. However, he was quite difficult on this day and refused to eat the breakfast I prepared in protest over the fact there was no cinnamon in the house.

After the dagger he threw in my heart, I was not in the convincing mood.

Pam later said she laughed aloud driving the other day thinking about Beckett’s comment to me that morning.

That’s interesting because it felt like a kick to the groin to me, but it’s been said that’s actually funny so long as you are not on the receiving end of the boot.

About The Author: Steven Green

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The writer has been with The Dispatch in various capacities since 1995, including serving as editor and publisher since 2004. His previous titles were managing editor, staff writer, sports editor, sales account manager and copy editor. Growing up in Salisbury before moving to Berlin, Green graduated from Worcester Preparatory School in 1993 and graduated from Loyola University Baltimore in 1997 with degrees in Communications (journalism concentration) and Political Science.