broke down

ahh, the joys of daddy time. Brooke has been working like crazy trying to connect with kids before they go on summer break. And since I am one of those kids on summer break at the moment, I get to watch my daughter. Usually this is a great thing. She's at a stage where she's very, very close to walking and talking so she works her way around any room by holding onto furniture, walls, cats' tails, and my face, babbling about balloons, bottles, balls, mommy, kitty, and other "words" I can't make out. It's pretty dang cute. But every once in a while--every three days to be exact--we have a melt-down day where nothing is to her satisfaction. It's tears and drama from sun-up to sun-down. And those are the days when even reading an article on the philosophy of biological classification and genomics sounds pretty enticing. Today was one of those days. (Coincidentally, I had an article on the philosophy of biological classification and genomics to read.) We had hours of tears for no reason, the phone rang off the hook while I'm busily changing poop-filled diapers, and I missed a meeting I was supposed to go to on campus because I couldn't get her to eat lunch. Nothing was going right and finally I had it. I did something that I thought I would never do--something my parents did to me and I regretted. Something that only no-good, tank-top wearing, unwashed, hill-billy dads do to their kids. I turned on the TV, set Greta down in front of it, and walked away. I know. Bad parent! Bad parent! The good thing was, it was Sesame Street and today's number was "8." Between "8" and Grover and Elmo, I had a completely docile kid on my hands. The next hour went very smoothly between PBS and a Fisher Price "Little People" video. When Barney came on, however, I decided enough was enough. I turned off the TV and we went over multiplication tables for the next hour to wash away any bad TV residue. Just kidding. I would never do that to a kid--too much pressure to perform academically too early makes for freaky kids. They're addition and subtraction flashcards. And we only went through them for 10 minutes.