Image © Jamin Garoutte

This morning, my son snuck into our bedroom after he woke-up. I think my wife may have turned on the TV, while our son climbed into the bed between us. After several minutes, my alarm went off for about the third time so I got up, and my son scooted over into my spot, pulling the sheets over himself. That’s when it happened. All of a sudden, and for no reason at all, he promptly reached over, grabbed my sleeping wife’s nose, ripped it clean off, and ate it… Whole!

It started a few months back, innocently enough with randomly pretending to pull pieces off our shirt sleeves or pant legs and eating them, but quickly progressed to flesh. I distinctly remember the first time he made the inevitable transition: I was changing his diaper with my sleeves pulled-up and he ripped a piece of my forearm straight from the bone. I looked in utter disbelief. “What was that?!” With a grin, he took the handful of imaginary daddy-meat and bit into it with a growl. “Did you just eat my arm?!” Smacking his lips, the nonchalant reply came: “Good!”

Now it’s a regular thing in our house. We go about our normal day with the occasional interruptions of a lion roaring at us and someone eating our noses. Apparently he’s discovered as his parents we will willingly provide for his needs, as often times he simply reaches a hand towards our faces asking, “Nose?” We’ve had to talk a few times about being careful not to scratch, and he’s become much gentler in the art of nose stealing or arm ripping, however regardless of how peacefully he takes his meal it always ends in with a savage “AHRRMN!” as he consumes his handful in a single bite. Yesterday, after eating my nose, I stole his to replace mine only to have him eat that one too. The child is ruthless.

I honestly have no idea where he comes up with this stuff. My wife says he gets it from me. Is there an imagination gene? Because if there is, and mine is the dominant trait, we are in serious trouble.

Back in the Spring, during one of the classes I teach, I received the following text from my wife, “CHANDLER PEED IN THE POTTY!!!” I was so excited—No, I was disappointed—but so excited! For a few days he’d been telling us every single time he did something in his diaper, so we thought we’d just start to introduce him to the frog potty. He had literally only been on the thing 2 or 3 other times.

I was so excited for my son, not because it meant the diaper phase would be coming to a close (he’s stubborn & we still haven’t seen the end of diapers yet), but because that’s a big step for any little one to realize that one particular action belongs in a completely different context from how they’ve understood it up to now. It shows he’s not only learning how to use & control his own body, but that he is starting to grasp how things work—cause & effect.

However, I was also disappointed that I missed it. There haven’t been many things in my son’s life that I haven’t been present for, and I wasn’t there to celebrate right away—to praise him for a job well done, and help him understand how to make right decisions (yes, I do realize that this is just a kid peeing in a hole, but more than that he chose to do it in the potty rather than the diaper, and that’s a right decision he needs to make for himself—we’re celebrating every right decision at this stage so that hopefully it starts him on a lifetime of making the right decisions).

Naturally, I did what any dad who missed something important would do—I bought him something cool. He loves trains, so I found him another Chuggington train to add to his collection. Obviously, I had no intention of buying him something every time he went on the potty, but this was the first & deserved to be celebrated. After my wife shook her head at me for being such a sucker, we determined that we’d give it to him right away the next time he did it (the first time might’ve been a fluke). Later that night, I got my chance to share in the excitement.

My wife had left for work a few hours earlier, and I was getting my son ready for bed. Before putting his pajamas on, I asked if he wanted to go pee-pee on the potty & he protested. I stripped him down & set him on the frog potty, but not even two seconds later, he popped-up to walk away. I reached for him saying, “No, no, no, buddy! You need to sit down on the—” but there was something in there. It was wet… It was wet??… IT WAS WET!!!!!

While the realization that my son had already peed on the potty was finally sinking in, my son was leaning over to see as well—with his hand! I couldn’t stop it, he’d already gone too far. He put his hand in it. I panicked. I didn’t want him touching anything with his urine glove, so I grabbed him & started rinsing his hand under the water. Being a mild germophobe, I covered him in soap & washed like crazy. Twice. Of course, I was praising him the whole time saying, “THAT’S AWESOME! GOOD JOB, BUDDY!” Then being afraid that there may still be remnants, I grabbed some hand sanitizer—how do you really know that you got all the pee off, I mean really?

In my sanitation frenzy, I failed to notice a very distinct sound behind me. I was too busy—our health was at risk! When I finally felt that my son was thoroughly purified, I turned around to dispose of the potty contents. But there were none. Had I imagined it? I swear he peed in that thing… Looking up, the dog was in the doorway staring at me. It was almost as if her expression was defensively saying, “What?!” Oh no…

Yep. She licked it up. All of it. Suddenly, I recalled the sound of licking while I was getting my son cleaned-up. My son put his hand in urine, and my dog drank my son’s pee, both while I was standing right there, not 2 feet from it. There goes my shot at father of the year.

Image © Jamin Garoutte

It happened to me again, just a little bit ago. I had just walked out of the family room; my wife was upstairs asleep, and my son was at the babysitter’s, so I was pretty much alone in the house. And I heard it—a strange voice began speaking to me from an empty room. There was a short moment of panic, as if standing in a horror film slightly afraid to turn around, but it quickly passed. “What stupid toy is going off now?!”

Today, it was a book that my In-Laws bought for my son, one that they could record their own voice reading each page to him (probably why I freaked for a second—it’s pretty scary to hear your mother-in-law start talking behind you when you don’t even know she’s there).  However, most of the time it’s a little talking dog. I can’t remember this particular toy’s name, but it’s a pretty popular toy. I’m convinced it’s possessed, most likely by Satan himself.

Here’s the typical scenario: I’m sitting alone in the basement working on a project. Everything’s going good until suddenly, my thoughts are interrupted by the voice. “Wanna come out & play?” Thankfully, I don’t have to go and change my pants (this time), but that thing freaks me out!

I’m not sure why people feel the need to buy someone else’s child a toy that talks to them, but inevitably these things will scare the crap out of you. Coincidently, most of these things come from Grandma & Grandpa—maybe it’s just their sick, twisted way of getting back at you for coloring on the hardwood floor with a sharpie when you were three. I don’t know. What I do know is that I really wish someone would have warned me about it sooner.

Growing up playing the saxophone, I was often given the same piece of advice from my instructors—especially when it came to improvisation: “Fake it ’til you make it.” The idea was that when you’re not exactly sure what to play, you just play whatever you can and pretend you know what you’re doing. By just putting yourself out there enough, you’ll discover what works and eventually find yourself knowing what you are supposed to be doing.

One of the most difficult parts about parenting is that I seriously don’t have the slightest clue what I’m doing. I like to know what’s coming 3 & 4 moves ahead so I can control the outcome like a game of chess, but with raising a child, the rules are always changing—what works in one scenario is the complete worst thing you could possibly do in others! So what do you do? Fake it ’til you make it!

Want to be a Godly parent? Ask yourself what a Godly parent would do in your situation & do it. My wife & I were terrible about prayer, especially praying with each other, in our first 5 years of marriage. After our son was born, I truly desired to set a solid example for him of a Godly man, so I started praying—all the time—and reading the Bible, memorizing scripture. By putting myself out there, spending time practicing the things I believe a Godly parent would do, my life is slowly being reshaped into that of a Godlier man and a better father. I may still have an extremely long way to go, but it’s a start.

Fake it ’til you make it!

What kind of parent do you want to be?

*Note: Again, this is not a paid review—in fact, I paid for the product because I knew it would be awesome. It absolutely did not disappoint, so I wanted to tell you about it because this is a great musical investment in your family!

If I recall correctly, a few weeks after we announcing that we were going to have a baby, my brother presented us with one of our most significant & most used parenting tools that we never knew we needed. What was this most magical & amazing tool for a new parent? It was a CD of kid’s songs by Randall Goodgame & Andrew Peterson called, “Slugs & Bugs & Lullabies.” This wasn’t just any kid’s CD—it was one of the only children’s albums that not only could I stand to listen to it, I actually enjoyed listening to it!

You have to understand that my wife cut her teeth on annoying Christian children’s songs that make me cringe to this day. I vowed when I became a parent that if our child was ever going to listen to kid’s albums, they would have to be songs that I could stand to listen to. After sampling the Slugs & Bugs album a few times, I found myself hooked on the combination of great music, ingenious humor, and solid moral foundation. We tested the album out on some close friends (who don’t really go to church), and their daughter fell in love with the songs. She continually asked her parents to play “Tractor, Tractor!” every time they got in the car, despite having only heard it once or twice, not to mention they didn’t even have a copy of the CD themselves. Apparently, after singing some generic nursery rhymes at preschool she even tried to teach the song to her entire class.

Now that our son is two, he loves the Slugs & Bugs albums (they have a Christmas album that you cannot miss—The Camel Song is a new favorite part of our holiday tradition). So when we found out that Randall Goodgame had opened a Kickstarter page to help fund a new Slugs & Bugs CD, we bought-in immediately! One of the perks that was offered for our purchase was that we got a pre-release of the album as a digital download, and it has not stopped playing in our house!

I downloaded “Slugs & Bugs: Under Where?” while my son was down for a nap & started listening to it immediately while working. I soon found myself listening & laughing more than I was working, and this album wasn’t even for me! After playing just a handful of songs in the car later that afternoon, our whole family was hooked. Not a car trip goes by without my son asking, “Light-Ning-Buuuuug,” or “Ride wagon! HIPPO!” The best part is that I don’t hesitate to turn his music on or groan that I have to listen to it again because I enjoy listening and singing along—”I’m a ninja, you’re a ninja, he’s a ninja, she’s a ninja, would you like to be a ninja too?”

Let me finish by offering you my truest testament to how awesome this album is:

We got together with my brother’s family this past weekend. He also received the album ahead of time, and standing around a bon-fire roasting marshmallows our niece started singing “Can someone help me? Help me find my bunny?” off the title track for the album. I replied, “Well, did you look under there?” And she broke down laughing saying, “Under Where?!” Throughout the next hour, both of our families sang and laughed about underwear, lightning bugs, pajamas, cheese dip, and ninjas while making some awesome memories that I will not soon forget.

If you want to find out more about this album, Randall talks a little about his passion for this project in “Kickstarting a new Slugs & Bugs Record”. You can also check out their website, the official Slugs & Bugs blog, or follow them on Twitter (@slugsandbugs).

But honestly, I can tell you right now that you might as well stop reading about it and simply visit the Slugs & Bugs online store to purchase the album, since it’s available today! Better yet, just get the bundle of all three albums, as you’ll be picking the other two up soon anyway (these also make PERFECT Christmas presents to give away)!