Gulf Coast Family

“Dad, Hanna flushed my Spiderman down the toilet and now there is water all over the bathroom floor!” “Dad, should the baby be playing with permanent markers?” “Dad, Daniel is sick again, and mom said you need to go clean it up fast!” As a father of four, I have come to the conclusion that I not only need to be as strong as superman to survive, but I also need to have a sense of humor if I am ever going to be able to cope with the adventures parenting brings my way.

One afternoon recently, when things were a little too quiet around the house, I decided to check in on the kids. When I opened the door to the girls’ room, I found my little girl dressed in her princess outfit, taking sweet motherly care of her dolls. However, when I opened the door to the boys’ room, I found a completely different scenario. I found my boys sucking on pieces of tissue paper and then sticking them in the nostrils of their nose and blowing them at each other. Well of course, I was irate! I told them “I never want to see you sucking on paper and sticking it in your noses ever, ever again! It is disgusting and not something we should be doing!” That is when my youngest son caught me completely off guard and very innocently asked, “But would it be alright, if we soaked the paper in the sink first and then stuck it in our noses?”

My first reaction was to blow my top and consume the boys with my laser vision; however, my mind raced back to when I was a young child and how my parents responded to some of my crazy antics. So without another word, I calmly left the room, closed the door, and broke into laughter.

Pediatricians now tell us that a person’s sense of humor actually begins to develop in early infancy and that it is a trait that can be learned from and nurtured by parents. So with this in mind fathers, as you care for, nurture, and discipline your children, remember to always do it with love, remember that you are molding your children, and remember that sometimes the best thing you can do is just laugh. — Rodney