Independent

The toddler craves independence, but he fears desertion. 

~ Dorothy Corkille Briggs

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I was talking with Kirk the other day. He had - according to him - one of the worst days ever with Zak. First Zak said the bear Kirk and Jared got him was stupid. Then he screamed in time out. Kirk opened the door to check on Zak after he'd been quiet for a while.

Kirk: I opened the door to the most terrifying thing ever - guess what he was doing?

Me: Climbing out the window.

Kirk: (long silence) Okay. So thank you for coming up with something worse than what he was actually doing. He was sitting on top of his dresser.

Me: Oh. That's not good.

Kirk: No. I went off. When I was done and we were discussing it, Zak said, "You were MAD, Papa." I told him, "I wasn't mad, Zak. I was scared. You could have gotten hurt." Then we talked about it for a while. Either he understood why I was afraid or else he thinks I'm a fraidy cat.

Me: When some kid at school says, "My dad can beat up your dad," Zak is going to say, "Yep."

Kirk: (laughing)

Me: "My papa is afraid of dressers."

Kirk: (laughing a lot more). See? That's why I called you. I feel better now.

I think we all learned some important lessons today. First, Zak understood that his papa loves him and doesn't want him to get hurt even on the days when Papa doesn't really like Zak's behavior. Second, Kirk learned that bad days with toddlers make good stories. Third, I learned that I should probably run a hotline to help parents find the humor in their days.

But we all know that I wouldn't answer the hotline calls unless they came from someone I knew, so maybe we shouldn't do that last thing.