DJ Electric Daddy

Click to Play On a chill but pleasent spring morning, our little Sprite finds many an amusement in the back garden wonderland of fallen leaves, puddles, dirt and all manner of things to get himself filthy dirty and soaking wet. Oh well, boys will be boys. Anyhow, it keeps him busy and occupied for a time. Even if it means we have to rake up the leaves again after the G-Express ploughed through them for the umpteenth time.

So it turns out our child is a rare breed. A specimen of American society found in only 10-15% of children. Much to our chagrin he is not an exceptionally gifted genius. No, our rare breed is 'spirited' as defined in the book "Raising Your Spirited Child" by Mary Sheedy Kurcinka. ElectricMommy was doing some research on the internets, trying to find out if The Sprite's bossy, rowdy and explosive behavior was within the realm of normal toddlerdom, and found many a reference to the above mentioned book. It was clear after the first chapter that our little monster is a prototypical Spirited Child, displaying every trait that defines such character. Most of these traits are off the chart to the extreme. So what are these traits that make-up such a child? They are more intense, hyper sensitive and emotional, extremely perceptive, stubbornly persistent, and excruciatingly resistant to change. Noticeably more so than your typical, yet already intense, sensitive, persist...

Yep, you read that right. ElectricMommy and I, with our infinite parenting skills, potty trained our little tinkling-toddler The Sprite in seven easy, effortless days. All those reports we read about three years in and out of diapers, little progress, frustration and failure led us to believe we would have an eleven year old still wearing desperately tight Huggies. But no. That kind of nonsense is obviously for loser parents with no skills. Well that is the story we are selling. That's what we would like to believe, and for you to believe. But truth be told we had very little to do with it. His Spriteness being the single-minded, determined and persistent child he is, got it into his head he wanted to wear underwear and he pretty much potty-trained himself. He was done with diapers, they are for babies, and he would be damned if he was going back to them. It went down something like this: Upon return to the homestead from our Family Jaunt we decided it was time to make a 'conc...

The highlight of our trip to Pacific Grove/Monterey was the day we went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium . This is one of the largest research and tourist aquariums in the country, it's centerpiece being a million gallon deep ocean tank. The Sprite had a great time running all over the place looking at sharks and jellies and fish of all sizes and colors. "Oh wow, look at that...." was the quote of the day, and has followed him home as we rediscover sharks and jellies over and over again. The first batch of clips are of The Sprite being himself enjoying all the distractions a huge aquarium has to offer. The entire collection of video clips from our vacation can be found on Blip.tv . Technorati Tags: family , toddler , vacation , aquarium

So it's been awfully quiet around these parts lately. And I know what you are all thinking. "Ooooh, so the novelty of writing a weekly blog post has worn off and reruns off Married With Children are more enticing. We get it." But no, I have good reason. On top of the usual responsibilities of a deadline based job, the demands of an increasingly stubborn and bossy toddler, and the constant fix-me-ups necessitated by a fifty-year-old-home, there have been a couple of additional distractions recently. England and we all took a trip up to the Bay Area for a week. I'll write a detailed post about the vacation later, suffice it to say it was a grand time for all. It's been a little while now so I'll need to remember what we did, as family vacations tend to blur into one long feeding binge punctuated by sightseeing. "Did we do the abattoir on Wednesday?" "No, the abattoir was was Thursday. We has the mackerel on Wednesday, so that was after we hit the...

As The Sprite has gotten older and more confident, he has got more independant and stubborn too. But he has also show a great willingness to help. He is so keen to help in fact, it is increasingly difficult to actually get anything done. From flushing the toilet to pulling up ones pants, Young Master G is there to lend a hand. Need to bring the newspaper in from the street, we have a (two-year-old) man on the job. Dishes need putting away, The Sprite is there (under my feet) to assist me. Now don't think I'm ungrateful. I'm actually trying to enjoy every minute of this willingness while it lasts. How long before I am asking, begging, pleading GSM to help take some trash out or tidy his room? How long before eagerness to help is replaced by eagerness to sit-on-his-lazy-arse-watching-Spiderman-cartoons-and the-rest-of-you-can-fuck-right-off. It is with this thought in mind I tolerate tripping over him as I haul 50lb trash barrels out to the kerb, whilst he 'helps' me....

The Sprite and I have a set ritual we follow every evening. We have had this ritual for many months, in fact pretty much since he was born. It has always been my duty to get him ready for bed and put him down to sleep. I always looked at this as my treat, my special time with him, even if it did mean missing more than a fair share of hockey, or episodes of LOST. As The Sprite has gotten older, Les Rituale has gotten more elaborate and takes an increasing amount of time. When he was an infant, a quick scrub of the gums, a change of diaper and short rock in my arms would be all that was necessary to get him down to sleep. There were occasions of course where the rocking in my arms would be lengthy and it may have taken several trips into his bedroom to settle him down. But as we got into teething (and eventually a full set of chompers), and as he started to find his voice, and as he discovered books at bedtime, and realized the delaying properties a book at bedtime possessed, the number ...

The past few weeks have seen The Sprite's vocabulary increase at an impressive rate. He is stringing small sentences together, he's somewhat comprehendible and working the word 'actually' into almost every phrase. "Shall we wear the red t-shirt today?" "Yes, red t-shirt, uh, it's actually green" "No, it's red. It'd your red shirt with the drums on" "No it's not drums, it's actually green" "Okay sunshine whatever you say, green it is" "No, it's not sunshine, sunshine is actually outside" "Alright, now you're just being a smart-arse" "It's not smart-arse daddy. Thats not a good example of the language one should use in front of a toddler. A better example would be smart-alec. Actually" As you can see from the accurately recreated discussion with The Sprite from this evening, he is also becoming quite contrary. We say black, he says white. Or green. It is usually...

The latest health related episode the Sprite of Fury has had to endure occured this past weekend. After a perfect day Saturday working outside in the back garden, with Lil' G helping out or playing by himself for pretty much the whole day, we wrapped the days activities with a little hockey practice. While I practiced my reverse crossovers and close-quarters stick handling in the street (yes, a terrible example of safety I know) The Sprite followed along and retrieved errant pucks for me. We played a little kerb-side catch as he would throw me the puck and I shoot it back to him, before turning in as the sun went down. A great end to a very nice, productive day. The troubles began a little before 11pm that night. After eating all his dinner and doing our bedtime ritual, he settled down to sleep around 9pm. Less than 2 hours later our Pay-Per-View movie for the evening was interupted with loud and painful cries from his bedroom. I go to see what is wrong and find a large puddle of v...

With every giant step for Spritekind our little monster takes, I sometimes forget he is still barely a toddler. Fresh out of infancy and raring to go. As he repeats his ABCs all the way through to XYZ, names all his colors, counts to Ten and ties his own shoelaces (okay,the last one is a fabrication) he impresses me with his maturity. I mean, any minute now he'll be slugging baseballs, ripping slap-shots and bending it like Beckham... But there are times that remind me just how young and fragile he actually is. Most parents will tell you there is no more trying time than when your child is sick. More so when they are still not old enough to fully appreciate what is happening to them. The Sprite had a few episodes recently that brought me back down to reality. First, he had an encounter with pins and needles. Something new for a kid to deal with. How do you explain your hand falling to sleep? Trying to get The Sprite to wave his hand around, clench and unclench his fist, was futile ...

As a parent of a 2 year old, like every parent of toddlers, I'm continually impressed with my child's uniqueness. Every thing he does amazes me and I'm convinced no other child in the universe is close to matching The Sprites' skill and personality. That is until I talk to other parents or read the many parenting blogs out there. Yes, out "there", it seems almost every other toddler displays almost excactly the same personallity quirks as my now-not-so-unique Sprite. Toddlers are going through such an incredible rate of development, it is hard to believe they all pass through the same "compass points" along the way to Childhood. But I am amazed when I hear of other kids acting so similarly to mine. How can little Lucy babble and laugh in exactly the same dialect of Toddlerese as my little Monster. Why does young Tommy find the same properties of common garden dirt so enthralling. And edible. Are they all somehow related? Cut from the same Carbon Matt...

It was inevitable really. Just a matter of time. I wish I could blame Mrs Electric Mommy for the whole affair, but, truth is, it was me who takes the rap for this one. It started about two weeks ago whilst I was taking newspapers out to the stack in the garage. On the way I stubbed my pinky toe and out of instinct, habit and generally poor judgement, yelled out a resounding "FUCK!!!" The Sprite of Fury was only feet away, well within earshot. But he did not acknowledge theoutburst, and continued on with his toddling. I thought for sure I had gotten away with that one. And for a few days I did. But kids are a wiley breed. They know way more than they let on. So when he looked like he was innocently toddling in that post-expleted moment, he was in fact processing, filing and tagging the new word. It was later in the week when he decided to test his new word. A toy was not going back in its rightful place, behind the toy-box under the window, and to express his displeasure with ...