My daughter is a trip. She 18 months or so old now, and I keep thinking that nothing bad has happened to her her whole life.
Nobody has ever gotten really mad at her.
She’s never fucked up and had to worry about the consequences.
She’s never hurt herself so bad that a kiss and hug from Mommy and Daddy can’t cure it.
She’s never actually had to do anything that wasn’t fun. No work, no school, no chores. No adversity whatsoever.
The net result is that she is absolutely and totally without fear.
This is all pretty much my fault.
Her favorite game is Jurassic park.
It works like this:
I crouch down, and stick my butt out. Then I pull my hands up like they are really small like a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Then I sniff the air and stop around looking for my daughter.
She is usually giggling madly behind a couch somewhere. I catch her sent and roar (kinda like Godzilla, real loud.) She goes running and laughing. I stomp after her, grab her and pick up and chew on her belly while making slobbery noises. She laughs uncontrollably.
We also play Peek-a-boo-attack.
This is where I run away and hide in wait. When she comes galumphing along, I jump out in surprise, yell “ARRRRRR!!,” and pick her up and chew on her belly. Again she laughs.
Or sometimes I play mad-rabid-dog (which is pretty self-explanatory.)
She also likes to get my attention, climb up on a couch or table, and get ready to jump off. I yell “Noooooo!” as I dive to catch her, and she laughs her head off at silly Dad.
The end result of all this, is that I have unwittingly trained her to laugh in the face of danger, like a daredevil.
During the Easter egg hunt two weekends ago, my buddy Pat was there with his kid, a little boy about two years old, by the name of Frankie.
Without thinking I went into T-rex mode, and roared at Frankie, just for fun. Frankie screamed in terror and ran away.
Oooops.
My daughter understands the concept of being bad. We had rented Charlie’s Angels, and she was playing on the floor as we watched.
She gets up, walks over to the VCR, looks at us, and gives us this big goony smile. “Bad baby,” she says.
“NO!” I yell.
“Bad baby,” she says again, as she hits the power button on the VCR and the television erupts in snow, and loud noise.
I get up to fix it and she laughs and runs away. I grab her and take her back to the chair.
“You’re a bad baby. Don’t do that.”
“Bad baby,” she agrees.
She will also say “Uh-Oh,” before she knocks her Cheerios and milk onto the floor.
Another fun thing she does is try to put all kinds of things in the toilet. Books, Daddy’s watch, her Teddy bear. After she gave up trying to poop on the cat this became her next fascination.
Fortunately though, I am both physically and mentally superior to my daughter for the time being.
I invented a new game.
The bathroom door downstairs is a simple latch, so we can’t close it so that she can’t get in.
I keep a generous supply of duct tape handy.
I went over to the doorway, and laid strips of duct tape across the entranceway, sticky side out, like a spiderweb. My daughter comes over to investigate.
“Duct tape,” I say holding it up for her to see.
“Map! Map!” she says. This makes complete sense to me. That’s her version of “Quack! Quack!” My daughter knows a ducky goes “quack quack.” I said “Duct tape,” she heard “Duck,” and replied appropriately.
When I was done I walked away.
By the time I sat down on the couch, my daughter was hopelessly stuck. She could free one part of her body, but only by sticking another into the doorway tape.
Discovering the perils of duct tape kept my daughter busy for half an hour or so. When she cried, I freed her. Now she stays away from the bathroom.
Just for fun, I like to take duct tape, and make little circles sticky side out with it. I then put it on my daughter’s nose.
She picks it off, but can’t drop. So, she use her other hand. Now it’s stuck in the other hand.
I use the opportunity to place another little circle of duct tape on her leg. Pretty soon she’s got ten of them all over her.
This would keep her busy for a long time, until she learned to roll them against the floor until they came off.
I learned the joy of duct tape because my daughter decided she like to get naked all the time (which I can understand,) Mostly though she liked to get naked right before she had take a poop. I started duct taping her diapers on, and putting a little piece over zippers, and duct taping her shirt to her pants, so she can’t take them off. After I tie her shoes, I wrap duct tape around them, so she can’t take those off either. I only do this around the house, as I’m well aware of the looks I would get in public, but it’s totally harmless.
It will be interesting to see how she turns out.