I don’t think I’m biased when I say that I have spawned one of the most prolific performers (per capita) in the history of entertainment. Not Whitney Houston circa Bodyguard, nor Krea$hawn circa Gucci, Gucci could match her range and tenacity. My problem really is, I haven’t found a suitable way to make any money from this. (Story of my life, some might say).
So, the pageant circuit seems grueling and really what are we hoping to win there, prestige? Free teeth whitening for life, maybe.
AT really hates brushing her hair. This is not a new and unique thing to her. I’ve heard most 2 year olds aren’t big fans of you yanking giant knots (and with it little itty bits of flesh) out of their manes after bath time. She just looks so cute when you can actually get her to do it, that I’ve invested in some delicious tasting de-tangler that she’d much prefer to squirt into her mouth like it’s binaca, than use to de-tangle.
Want that Pat Riley (circa 1985) look? Give ’em lice!
But in that rare instance where she’ll allow it, her freshly brushed hair looks great. Those instances were few and far between until I got a dreaded call from daycare yesterday. I had literally not even walked into my office yet, having dropped her off a mere 10 minutes prior.
The Stages of Lice-ism:
1) Shock and Disbelief
“James, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but…”
Who starts a sentence like this??? That’s what got this whole lice-steria off on the wrong foot to begin with. My only logical thought with this opening statement is that she’s run off with the circus or went and got herself pregnant. Ludicrous
“…Andie has lice.”
Whaaaaa? Isn’t that for disgusting little kids that live in houses with shag carpets and hundreds of cats and were born red heads?
That’s what EVERYONE thinks when they hear about some kid that has lice. But I can tell you, it’s not even remotely true. AT has light brown hair and I only have 1 shag carpet and no cats. Regardless, I’m on my way immediately back to daycare to pick her up because they’ve made it sound like they’re quarantining her somewhere nice… and cold and basement-like.
As I hustle into her class she is not upset and surprisingly she is surrounded by a teacher and some other kids and not locked in anything at all.
The teacher says, “She’s been scratching and I saw a lice jump. My daughter came here for a week and ended up getting lice too, so I know what they look like.”
“Ugh, ok, well, you don’t seem that concerned, so what are you supposed to do?”
“Well, you just have to wash everything you own in scalding hot water, and potentially shave all of your facial hair off.”
To be fair, that might not exactly be what she said, but at the time I was completely distracted by the remembrance of all of the times I’d kissed the top of her head in the previous 24 hours. Ewwwwww. I counted at least 7 times.
2) Projection
When I first heard she had lice, it sounded kinda bad and gross, but after my conversations at daycare, I was significantly freaked out.
Am I going to have to burn everything I own?
Will I have to shave all of my hair off (at least finally now I’ll have that excuse to trim up the nose thought!)?
Will AT forever be marked at school as Pig Pen?
And then the hardcore projection started. I convinced myself almost immediately that my slightly itchy fill-in-the-blank was the result of invisible larvae spawning and multiplying exponentially. My beard felt like it was brand new and ridiculously itchy.
AT’s mom eventually met up with us and she too said that she immediately projected.
3) Avoidance and Quarantine
Even though the daycare didn’t quarantine her to prevent the spread of this salicious bug, I thought it was my duty to avoid going home with her. Naturally we went to the zoo. Sure there are at least 500 other kids at the zoo (half of them probably crawling with lice), but I figured I could keep her away from everyone and kill some time before our appointment at Lice Knowing You (yes, seriously, there is a business dedicated to eradicating lice, well actually, it’s a business dedicated to giving parents a slip of paper that states there kid is lice free – so they can go back to school).
We enjoyed looking at the… hmmmm, I don’t remember a single thing about the zoo except trying to keep AT’s head from touching anyone else’s. And you know what, that happens pretty frequently to 2.5 year olds, they inadvertantly head butt each other all the time. It’s cute when there isn’t a high liklihood of spreading infectious bugs.
I took this closeup at the Woodland Park zoo as we enjoyed a truly awful dining experience. Can’t see any lice, can you?
I told Andie that we had an appointment afterwards at a “pretty hair cutting place” where they’d give her a fancy new haircut. I’m so f-ing smart, she loved it. We enjoyed a terrible lunch at the zoo and then it was time to meet AT’s mom at Lice Knowing You to get us all de-liced.
4) Eradication (fancy hair brushing)
Lice Knowing You is in a non-descript building in Wallingford that looks like it houses a bunch of graphic designers and dentists. Be forewarned, the buzzer says LKY for discretionary purposes. I had to call them to figure that out because, really, that’s not something that’s obvious is it?
LKY is one-room, with a TV and 3 barber stools. There were 2 lice-techs there and when we arrived working on 2 other family’s. Our 12:30 pm appointment mysteriously never showed up on their books, but thankfully they were able to get us back in at 1:30, so we went and stewed for a bit in our lice-infestedness.
You have multiple options at LKY. 1) you can go to get “tested” for lice, or 2) you can skip #1 and go get “treatment” for lice. They allow you to skip #1 if you want to pay the extra money and I was pretty sure, so I opted to go for #2. AT’s mom wasn’t that pleased with that, but I was paying, and thankfully we did, because another woman came in to get tested and wasn’t able to get treated. That being said, they test the parents at no additional charge if you opt to get your kid treated.
I went first and it really just feels like they are about to give you a hair cut. They get your hair wet with essential oils and brush the $hit out of it. After a quick brushing, they could tell I was clean and mentioned, “9 out of 10 dads are clean.” Not sure why that is. A more inquisitive person probably would have asked, but I was just so damn excited to be sans-lice. Later when AT was getting her treatment a family came in from Snohomish (an hour drive away) and dad had it. So I guess he’s the unlucky 10%.
You can’t tell, but I was relieved to know that I was lice free here.
In fact, people take this lice thing so seriously, that there was another family in before us that had come from Tacoma (an hour the other direction). They said their 4 kids had all had to miss pretty significant amounts of school for lice. Yikes.
AT’s mom also didn’t have lice, and ultimately we caught (or more accurately, daycare caught) it right away, so it was relatively easy and LKY guarantees you are lice-free after their visits.
Basically all they do at LKY is brush your hair for an hour and charge you $100 for it. But that peace of mind was totally worth it.
Yes I burned everything I owned before I learned this.
At this point, she was still looking forward to her “pretty hair brushing”
She started to realize something was “up” almost immediately though.
The light was at the end of the tunnel at this point and she was starting to feel much more aerodynamic. Or like she could coach the Lakers to another championship.
She’s quite a handsome little girl with her “Pat Riley”
That’s obviously a ridiculous question, of course it does… when the blog in question is www.worldsbestdaddy.org! Not to get all self-aggrandizing on you (mostly because I don’t even know what that term means), but I really feel awful about not contributing anything to this thing in months, just awful. My brother Papa Goob has been slaving away on hyper-relevant parenting posts that can really help young parents navigate the difficult terrain of early parenting. Well, EXCUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUSE ME! Some of us have jobs.
The point of WBD is not to show everyone why I’m a better daddy, the accolades and awards do that talking louder than I could ever hope to, but to connect with other parents so they can share their experiences.
Here’s a couple of gratuitous photos of AT acting really cute. Enjoy.
And if you are a parent (mommy’s are great too) and are interested in having 10’s of people read about your amazing tricks and tips so they can be the best parent they can be, please, please submit your story idea to me: jstaylor33@gmail.com (yes, I also have that @lycos.com email address and I’m holding on to it!) – and I will literally gaurantee to put it up – no matter how trite and pointless it is!
Possible Ideas You Might Submit (for, again, gauranteed inclusion):
You: 39 year old grandmother of triplets, you don’t raise them, but you sure could do a better job than that horrible mother of theirs. Tell me and the world about it!
You: 43 year old techie-dad, how you rock at parenting without ever looking up from that device that’s so awesome! Tell us about it!
You: 22 year old doctor, you’ve been a doctor since you were 12 years old, you’re a prodigy, you know a lot about medicine. You were out celebrating a promotion to President of the hospital, and BAM! you met some loser who knocked you up, but again, you know a lot about medicine. Yes, I’m hoping there is a female version of Doogie Howser out there that also has a similar storyline to the protaginist of Knocked Up (I know you’re out there). Share it with the world!
I’m not saying I’m too important to contribute to my own blog, but I am real important. Thanks for helping, now I’m off to “put out a fire” at work (corporate-speak for problem-solving, though I do volunteer fire fighting on nights and weekends), because I HAVE A JOB and AM REAL IMPORTANT and TALK GOOD.
Thanks!
James
Publisher, Worlds Best Daddy.org
I just encountered a scenario that briefly called into question my own internal standing as Worlds Best Daddy (WBD) and I’m eager to see what my loyal subjects, I mean followers think about how I handled it. I’m confident you’ll agree WBD did the best thing for both the internet and of course my child.
Setting the scene:
It was a dark and rainy night, very Film Noir (well I guess it still is because it just happened), and I had just picked AT up from daycare. She was as happy as ever to see me – meaning she was really dissapointed that mom wasn’t there, but that’s besides the point. You don’t get to be WBD by worrying about what your kids want.
Anyway, her daycare is quite nice and in the new “tech ghetto” of Seattle, South Lake Union. There are a ton of people crossing the street and couple that with the awfulness of Seattle drivers, and it’s really nerve-wracking and you have to be extra careful, especially in the rain, with a screaming 2.5 year old in the car demanding “MORE CRACKERS NOW DADDY!”
So as per usual at this time of night, in this part of town, with this weather, I was a bit distracted (also, I was trying to send a text message and look at google maps, but that’s neither here nor there). When out of nowhere, my precious angel changes the cadence of her scream and I can tell that it’s not about crackers. I look back and AT has spun a Chinese Finger Torture (that’s probably not very PC, sorry) with her hair and it’s cutting off the circulation to her right pointer finger.
Backing up a bit, AT regularly spins her hair and it kinda drives me crazy. I used to work with a woman who I’d consider one of the dumbest and most annoying people on earth and she used to twirl her hair constantly. I associate it with stupidity and it absolutely freaks me out that my little uber-intelligent-smarty-pants could have such a “tick.” I choose to believe that there is no correlation and that the dumby I used to work with was just doing it to antagonize me personally.
As Andie was obviously scared and in pain, I pulled over immediately to rectify the situation and help her untangle, but then I had a thought, perhaps she’d want me to take a photo of it? I’ve done all kinds of dumb stuff as both an adult and an adolescent, so I’m sure I must have done even dumber things as a child, yet there is no photographic evidence of this. I’d like to have photo evidence of that bean I stuck in my nose, but I’ll admit that I’m not a normal person.
So her finger was getting pretty purple at this point and I don’t feel great about it, but here’s the photo.
If it’s any consolation AT, I really believe you’ll be happy that I caught this for posterity. And thankfully, we were able to save the tip of your finger… and your hair. Actually cutting your hair was my first inclination, but then I remembered you have picture day tomorrow and I can’t deal with the wrath of your mom if you show up looking like some weird hipster.
The moral of the story is that we are all winners. I was able to save her hair, her finger, and the image for eternity.
Kate Fox, Toddler-tips-and-tricks.com
Anyone who has potty trained a toddler knows you need a few things to be successful. First, you need a willing and ready toddler. Second, and almost equally as important, you need an equally willing and ready parent. Some idealist would stop right there and feel ready — but this combination alone leaves out a major player in American potty training. Do you see what’s missing? That’s right…. candy!
Now, most of the time I’d vilify candy just as much as the next person for being the empty calorie, cavity-promoting, dinner-spoiler that it is. But in the realm of potty training, candy is king. Think about it, we’re talking about convincing a toddler to excrete on a giant, flushing bowl of water rather than in a soft, absorbent diaper! Do you really know of a vegetable with the motivation power needed to accomplish this? I don’t.
Just because it works for you, doesn’t mean we endorse it for your children until they have that paper route when they’re 10.
The trick with using candy is to know exactly how to use it. You give too much candy and your toddler isn’t left wanting more. You don’t give enough and your toddler feels the reward is not worth the effort. You have to find that perfect balance. Maybe it’s two Skittles for going #1, three Skittles for going #2. Maybe each bodily function deserves its own type of candy: M&Ms for pee, a Starburst for poop. And then you’ve gotta figure out the reward for going on strange toilets. How much is going on the self-flushing toilet at the library worth? Or the spider infested one at the park? Wait… scratch that last one. How much to get the kid to pee behind the tree instead?
It’s a delicate balance, but somewhere in the midst of the successes and the failures, a “big kid” emerges looking pretty similar to that little munchkin you still like to call your baby. And you can’t help but think how much more painful of a process it would have been without the sugar!
Kate Fox is a contributing author at www.toddler-tips-and-tricks.com and, as you can tell from her post, the master of child-rearing-slight-of-hand. You can reach her at marketing@toddler-tips-and-tricks.com
World’s Best Daddy, not to be confused with World’s Best Father (which sounds quite impish if you say it out loud) occassionally allows his daughter to gain valuable nutrients through washable pen…. and hang out in creepy lighting to build character.
Today on squidslist they profiled a nice little art project about some guy in DC with a photo montage, titled World’s Best Father – capturing lurid photos of himself lounging about while his child is subject to non-age-appropriate things like babysitting and coffee-making – she’s only 3! Rest assured the cease and desist letter has already been drafted and it has quite a few exclamation points!!!! But this isn’t about who is or definitely is not the worlds best male parent, it’s about bringing awareness to the craft of fathering.
And where did he get this title anyway? Father makes it sound like we are in the 1950’s or England or something, Here in America we demand our children refer to us as Daddy. If I had to speculate, I’d say his wasn’t even a real title that was earned, like mine, which I received after extensive training and certification at the Universal Life Church (where coincidentally, you can use my coupon code, WorldsBestDaddy.ORG, to get 25% your theological ordainment and be marrying people or animals with just 3 clicks and your credit card number).
Unlike this profiteer, World’s Best Daddy is an O-R-G, meaning it’s here as both a repository or receptacle for Daddy’s to “get their learn on” and I can GUARANTEE you there is a 0% chance I ever make a dime off it. I find the greatest reward is simple do-gooder-ness. I’m not one to start a beef with some guy out there just because it will hopefully drive some traffic to my blog, I just want to make sure that everyone knows that there’s an alternative and that I am in fact the title holder.
I think there is a fine line between making your kid a mouth-breather and periodically getting a little break from parenting and giving your kid a little of what we all love – TV! There’s a reason why the good people at the TV ratings services Neilsen say that Americans spend on average 11 hours per day in front of them – TV’s addictingly good… and addicting. That being said, I don’t let AT watch more than a couple of hours per week…ish.
There is this unfair stigma associated with parenting through a little bit of TV and I’ve written a Kid TV Show Review Roundup not only because it might give some other parents good ideas, but because I’m brave enough to say, yes, I let my kid watch a little TV. I’ve seen some of whom I would consider the most attentive young parents regularly resort to a bit of the TV as babysitter too.
If you can believe it, she actually gets bored with TV pretty quickly and resorts to things like playing… weird
The show or movie I review must obviously be acceptable to the kid. Surprisingly, nature shows are not yet acceptable to my 2.25 yr old . I can only hope she dislikes animals. However unlikely, that’d awesome when the age of desiring another dog or a pony or horseback riding lessons usually hits with little girls.
Enjoyable
Kipper, Totoro, Fraggle Rock
Kipper is the greatest kids show ever created. It might also happen to be the quietest kids show ever created. Kipper does very little, and he has very little interaction with anyone or thing. He scores some very minor victories and everyone is generally walking at a very even pace at a very even keel.
Totoro is a Japanese movie that also has very little going on and is quite quiet. Created in the 80’s and dubbed in English by some child stars that are now tweenagers, it combines a nuanced and touching story, some great music, and amazing drawing to give kids and parents a nice relaxing, yet thoughtful, movie.
Jim Henson hit a homer to the mind of mid-80’s Jamie Taylor. I was always really pumped when I was fortunate enough to be at a friend’s house that was lucky enough to have HBO and my favorite show, Fraggle Rock, came on. I was too disadvantaged to have HBO I guess, but following my mantra of forcing everything I wanted when I was a kid on my daughter, I’ve enjoyed watching with her on Netflix (although she loses interest pretty fast).
Tolerable
Dora the Explorer is definitely an interactive show, which is great. It’s multilingual, which makes me feel better about allowing her to watch TV. However, it’s very slow and probably best suited for kids that are too young to be watching TV. They could advance the story faster and Andie’d be able to keep up just fine.
INTOLERABLE
Sesame Street, Everything that’s on Nickelodeon including but not limited to: Nick Kids, Nick Jr., Nick Pre-Teen, Nick Teen!, Nick U, Nick in the City, Nick en Espanol, Nick the Greek, or Nickleback XM Sirius Sattelite Radio.
It pains me dearly to say this, but Sesame Street is no longer a great show. It’s not even a good show. It’s pretty much intolerable. What makes this situation even worse is that the Elmofication of Sesame Street and the featured monster’s addictive personalities and high pitched cadence not only has driven the show into a ditch, but it makes kids love it. I wonder if we as parents just always spoke in a high-pitched and high-energy smiley voice if our kids would always do what we wanted? Probably worth experimenting. I’ve written about my disdain for the speech impediments that the primary characters are reinforcing in kids, so I won’t rehash here.
This show is the pride of public television and probably the most influential media absorbed for a certainly large swath of American society, so it’s disappointing the tact the creators have taken to make the monsters featured v. the classic characters (Big Bird, The Count, Bert & Ernie, et al.) and humans (Gordon, that other guy). Sesame Street undoubtedly had amazing music, innovative teaching methods, beautiful art, and made New York City look gorgeous and set the standard for children’s television – now it’s overproduced drivel. The guy that voices and puppets Elmo seems like a talent and a great story, but his character is absolutely awful.
I don’t have cable so I can’t actually confirm Nickelodeon sucks, but my last viewing of it made it seem like the only point was to sell squeezable sugary breakfast cereals. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
This is obviously not a comprehensive list. I found out about Kipper from my cousin Fran, and Totoro was a gift from my brother, so please comment below (not on facebook) with any other great, mellow, loved-by-kids movies or TV – the quieter the better.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my experience being a single dad and perhaps I may have somethings to share-with and gain-insights-from, the fathering public. I’ve made quite a few posts about my experiences at my other blog, kung-foolery.com – but I set this up to focus solely on the daddy aspects of my life. Thanks for stopping by, leaving a comment or two, and helping me help myself and yourself.
This is me and my sweetheart kid, who I’ll refer to as AT at worldsbestdaddy.org
World's Best Daddy 
