Tips For Future Toddler Parents: Lock Yourself In The House

OK, so it's been three weeks since I've written a post here, but I have a good excuse: I have a toddler.

My youngest boy is in the full throes of toddlerdom, meaning we get a full dose of tantrums, roller-coaster mood swings (insert your own cheap-shot Charlie Sheen joke here); death-defying acts such as running at top speed in every direction regardless of the presence of oncoming vehicular or rail traffic; disappearing acts in public places and a constant, loud speaking, all wrapped up in a small ball of irresistible cuteness. And all of this will happen during one visit to the local Costco.

Here's some advice for parents of soon-to-be toddlers: Lock yourself in the house for 18 months. Begin telecommuting. Employ grocery delivery services. Buy all your crap from Amazon.com. Host all family get-togethers. Inform various friends and relations that they are to remain alive and in good health for that period, lest they have a few fewer guests at their funeral. Get all your newspapers online or on your iPad. Have your dog fetch the mail.

Sure, this may sound extreme. A little crazy, even -- a rarity on this blog, to be sure. You may get a bad case of cabin fever; you could go stir-crazy and may even risk ending up like Jack Nicholson in The Shining, but any of those fates would be far better than the insanity that can ensue from any field trip with a toddler in tow.

(At this point, a few of you may suggest something along the lines of, "Well, why doesn't one parent stay home while the other do the errands?" Some may also ask, "Have you considered letting grandparents or aunts and uncles watch the kids now and then?" To which I say, "Well, yeah. Those ideas work, too. Just go with whatever feels right.")

I'm on my second toddler now. I am fully experienced in public meltdowns and the toddler's escape efforts, and his penchant for finding the most expensive and most breakable thing in any retail establishment. The memory of the amount of hair I lost through the physical force of my own hands should be fresh in my mind -- The Boy was only a toddler a couple of years ago, after all. I should understand that the best way to save myself from the near-heart-attacks and immense stress of such situations is to avoid them at all costs, even if it means I don't see a blue sky for a year and a half.

(It would be just like living in Indiana; I lived there for a year and a half and I don't recall seeing the sun once.)

Despite this, The Wife and I continue to take our toddler out of doors, mostly because we're stupid or insane or because diaper cream fumes have turned our respective brains into oatmeal. Or maybe The Sequel's cuteness makes us weak -- such as this evening, when he ran around the house saying, "No cookies in the fish tank! Not OK! I can see you!"

(So far as I can tell, nobody in this house has ever actually attempted to put cookies in the fish tank, mostly because they would get consumed before they reached said tank; so the origins of that phrase remain a mystery.) Nevertheless, its cuteness was beyond belief, and the moment he said it he could have received just about anything from either of his parents, no questions asked.

Thank God toddlers have yet to truly pick up on the wonders of capitalism; if they were just a bit more greedy, they could manipulate their cuteness into just about anything.

Anyway, in recent days we've gone on various shopping expeditions with both boys in tow; and as the eldest one is begging for us to buy him stuff, the young one is trying to have one or both of us arrested for vandalism or child endangerment or worse. This makes such trips more difficult.

Just the simple process of trying to discuss the purchase of a fish tank with The Wife is an immense exercise. "So, what do -- No, you can't have that -- So what do you think -- HEY, GET BACK HERE! -- what do you think of -- I said no, you can't have another cheap rubber band shaped like Spongebob -- HEY! Put that breakable glass bowl down! Now COME BACK HERE! Don't climb on that! And Boy, you can't have a dog! -- So what do you think of this fis -- WHAT ARE YOU DOING ON THAT THING! And don't step on that! -- quicktellmewhatyouthinkofthisfishtanknownownownowNOW!"

Most of our shopping expeditions take too long and end before they should be done, and then one of us gladly volunteers to make the make-up trip later on -- alone.

Building 'Shelter' Out Of Snow

Like much of the country, we up here in the Frozen North have been hit with a lot of snow this winter. This is not unusual for us, so we have some experience with what to do with all this frozen stuff after it has littered our lawn.

It would seem a shame to let all that snow go to waste. Otherwise, its only use is to hide dog poop, dead grass and hated relatives. So go ahead and ski, either down hill or the the other version for wimps like me who are deathly afraid of hurtling down a hill at top speed when there are very hard trees all about. Or snowmobile, because drunken, motorized hurtling is always a good idea.

For kids, there is sledding and snowball fights and snowmen creation which for parents mean, respectively: watching and praying your kid doesn't slide into somebody else; a chance for revenge against your kid for all the annoying things he's done his entire life, and yet one more example of you doing all the work while he gets all the credit.

Another great part of winters is the creation of a snow f0rt, in which you work furiously to dig a claustrophobic tube so you can crawl into it. The venerable snow fort is a rite of passage in a Minnesota childhood, as important as throwing snowballs at passing cars and writing your name in the snow. Snow forts have a long tradition, dating back to igloos built by northern natives and snow huts built by survivalists who for some reason feel a need to be in the middle of nowhere in the far north in the dead of winter.

I have a neighbor who builds an igloo in his front yard every winter. And then he and his kids sleep in it.

He told me about this at a party at Christmas. Logically, I should have chuckled at the very silliness of it all: "You mean you're working hard to build a house made of snow just outside the very nice home that you undoubtedly spend a considerable sum of money every year to heat?" Alas, that was not my first thought. Instead, I just thought this:

"Dang. I NEED to build my very own igloo RIGHT THIS VERY MOMENT."

Alas, laziness took over and I never did. But then, on Saturday, The Boy and I attended a Cub Scout function at the Scout Camp that involved a lot of running around in the snow at events run by enthusiastic young people who had odd names like "Banshee" and "Noodles" that I suspect weren't their given names. Our pack went from station to station performing various activities, such as a game of "Capture The Flag," only with rubber chickens, and bastardized versions of soccer and hockey. At another, we were supposed to track one of the staffers who had gone to search for a recently sighted yeti. We never found him during our allotted time, though nobody seemed particularly disturbed by this fact. Shouldn't we keep looking? Are you just going to leave him in the hands of the abominable snow monster? What's wrong with you people?!?

One of the most popular of the activities involved a huge pile of snow Swiss-cheesed with a bunch of tunnels that the kids, and some unfortunate, willing parents, crawled through, in and out of. The Boy had a blast. And my Minnesotan "Build An Igloo" instincts returned, only my expectations lowered and I decided to build a snow fort.

So today I took The Boy to the front yard and we got to building. And, because a regular snow fort is just way too easy, I insisted that we transfer snow from the big pile of snow that had developed in front of my house from my roof raking activities. So I spent my afternoon shoveling snow into a wheelbarrow and then transferring it to another part of the yard. My 6-year-old "helped" transfer the snow, and by "helped" I mean "didn't do anything but dig holes where I didn't want him to dig holes."

But we eventually dug our tunnel under a big pile of snow and then took turns crawling through said hole. And when we were done we found another pile and dug a hole into that one, and then dug channels to connect the holes so it looked like your typical messy snow pile with holes in them and footprints everywhere. The Boy had dreams of large rooms and comfortable sitting areas, much like I did as a kid when the snow forts I built were originally planned to have multiple levels and running water but ended up looking more like they had been dug by a giant rat.