Rolling with it
Because sometimes, we don't really have a choice.
My daughter loves her mom, and rightfully so. She looks like her mom, her first word was “mom,” she has a tiny coffee mug that looks like her mom’s—I could go on all day. As a family, though, we’ve recently reached a weird bend in the road.
My kid is obsessed with me.
I can’t pinpoint when this started or why. My first memory of it was a couple weeks back when my kid woke up scared in the middle of the night. My wife went to get her, only for the little one to crumble in the weird way kids like to go limp, drop their weight as if transforming into a sandbag. She screamed that she wanted me, that she didn’t want her mom, and she shoved her mom away. I picked her up, she snuggled into me, and we both went back to sleep.
This has snowballed. She insists that I get her dressed in the morning, bathe her in the evening, do her hair before school, play with her after dinner. It isn’t that I’m opposed to these things, but my wife and I have what I think is a pretty fair division of labor—she gets the kid ready for daycare, and I feed the dogs and give our geriatric bearded dragon his morning meds. Those sorts of things. My kid’s insistence on dad, dad, dad has thrown this into chaos. She’s the head coach of a football team benching the starting quarterback for the mostly-okay-but-largely-average backup.
We fought this at first. We had a system that worked, and it crumbled at a toddler’s whim.
Now that I’m writing that out, I guess I should have anticipated that.
Anyway, it didn’t work. The kid wants what she wants. The thing is, it’s not like she’s asking for ice cream for breakfast or wanting to play in the highway. She just wants her dad. And, even though my wife and I have divided up tasks in a way we think keeps our house in order, there’s really nothing wrong with the occasional parry. Once you’ve fallen into a routine, set up something you think is the best or only way of going about things, it’s hard to see otherwise. That’s the good thing about kids, though—they couldn’t care less about what you’ve decided is right. And sometimes, they have a little clearer of an idea of what’s actually important.
A couple recommendations:
Sydney Sprague is currently touring with Jimmy Eat World and Dashboard Confessional, and her latest album, maybe i will see you at the end of the world, is an absolute treat. Some songs, like “i refuse to die,” have a bit of an Americana edge, and others—“steve” comes to mind—have a little bit of a rougher punk edge. Truth be told, all the tracks blur these lines in a really clever, beautiful way.
HAD continues to be a literary journal that just blows my mind. Earlier this week, they published Amie Souza Reilly’s “My husband knows I love pastries from Costco,” which I immediately read because 1) HAD puts out great work, and 2) I also love pastries from Costco. It’s a sad, funny, vividly written little piece that I can’t recommend enough. And honestly, you can probably read it on a commercial break. It’s a little one, but it packs a punch.