Dear Baby Girls

I recently found a bucket list I wrote many, many years ago. So long ago in fact the term bucket list hadn’t been invented so my list was entitled “Just Live Life and Do It Damn It”.

It’s been fascinating reading the dreams of an Anthony that was care-free and single.

But as I went through the dreams and musings of what feels like another life altogether, I couldn’t help but wonder what a bucket list written AFTER I’d become a parent would look like.

There are obvious choices such as taking the kids to Disneyland and being able to go away for a single night without having to pack 16 bags and play car-packing Tetris.

But the changes in perspective are enormous. Pre-kids Anthony may have fantasised about a cute Danish girl joining him in the shower, but post-kids Anthony just longs to have a shower all by himself without any interruption.

The pre-kids bucket list had extensive travel plans on it. Post-kids I’m happy to get the kids out the door before 7.45 each morning.

 

Pre-kids: Read all the classics.
Post-kids: Actually get to read more than one adult book a year.

 

Pre-kids: Conquer Mt Everest.
Post-kids: Conquer the never-ending mountain of washing.

 

Pre-kids: Stay up all night on a tropical island and watch the sunrise.
Post-kids: Sleep through the entire night and not have to see the sunrise.

 

Pre-kids: Jump out of a plane.
Post-kids: Get through a meal without having to make airplane noises to get someone to eat.

 

Pre-kids: Build a dream house.
Post-kids: Get through a day without stepping on a Lego piece from their dream house.

 

Pre-kids: Participate in a group sky-dive.
Post-kids: Go to the toilet alone.

 

Pre-kids: Attend every match of <your sporting team> live this season.
Post-kids: Get to watch one half of one game on television undisturbed.

 

Pre-kids: Survive swimming with sharks.
Post-kids: Survive drop-off and pick-up at school (survive swimming with sharks).

 

Pre-kids: Learn an art or craft.
Post-kids: Keep your walls free from permanent art.

 

Pre-kids: Dine at Michelin starred restaurants around the world.
Post-kids: Drink a cup of tea without having to reheat it three times.

 

For the record there were 176 things on that old bucket list and going through them I was delighted I’d actually done 152 of them. For a moment I couldn’t help but revel in the abandon of the past.

And then the twins ran into the room with pictures of their horse-riding last week and excitedly recounted everything as if I hadn’t been there with them and I realised that while pre-kids Anthony had fun, post-kids Anthony has purpose.

We still travel. We still embrace new experiences. But now it’s not about me. It’s about showing the girls how wonderful life can be. About sharing the experiences.

I feel a bit sad for pre-kids Anthony: he didn’t have ‘be a parent’ on his bucket list and right now I couldn’t imagine a more fulfilling thing to do.

AS PARENTS WE WANT OUR KIDS TO BE HAPPY AND HEALTHY.  TO ACHIEVE THIS SEEMINGLY SIMPLE GOAL WE ENSURE OUR CHILDREN EXERCISE REGULARLY AND EAT FRUIT AND VEGETABLES.

No, really we do. Well some of us do. Sometimes.

Ok, maybe it’s more that I heard of a tribe living in remote Guinea where they eat nothing but green vegetables. And they like it. But that’s only because they’ve never heard of marketing. So they’ve never been subjected to the barrage of images that hypnotises us into eating rubbish that thirty years ago our parents would not have even fed to the dog.

At no time is this more prevalent than Easter. For our Guinea readers, Easter is a time of celebration where we gorge ourselves on as many chocolate eggs as our stomachs can handle (sometime more). And by celebrating I mean taunting diabetics with our disregard for their feelings and our own health and waistlines.

No wait that’s not right either… it’s a time where families come together and recognise the beauty of new life. We do this by eating enough sugar to put the children of our personal trainers through private school. And really Easter is about the children. And not just of our personal trainers and dentists. It’s about the ability of our kids to develop the analytical capacity to choose from an endless ocean of chocolate options. It’s about their negotiation skills – the ability to utilise pester power on parents.

And ultimately it’s about learning the lesson that too much chocolate will make you run around like a banshee before collapsing in a heap. A lot of children have problems with this last lesson so they may wish to repeat the exercise a few times.

And by a few times I mean thirty years.

Some traditionalists claim Easter is seven-weeks long. These people are way out of touch.  In the modern world Easter begins December 27 and is marked by the appearance of hot cross buns and the aforementioned eggs on supermarket shelves.

It lasts until the shops no longer have stock. So about May/June. Now some will try to tell you that Easter is about the resurrection of Jesus. That it’s a time of reflection. A time to be spent with family to recognise a major religious event where the Son of God died for our sins. But marketing tells me these people are what scientists call ‘kooks’ and/or dinosaurs. These scientists may or may not be on the payroll of marketing but they wear lab coats and produce ‘studies’ about how nine out of 10 dentists love Easter, so I must believe them.

And after all, these ‘kooks’ also believe Christmas is about goodwill and peace on earth. And – most shockingly – that Christmas is a single day! That’s right. One solitary day. Not a four-month long festival of commercialism and inciting toddlers to nag us for Elsa’s new green dress. Can you imagine?

THERE ARE SOME THINGS THAT ARE GUARANTEED TO PUT A PARENT’S NERVES ON EDGE. ONE OF THOSE IS HEARING FROM ANOTHER ROOM THE WORDS “I’M TELLING ON YOU!”

Your heart sinks, your blood pressure rises and sometimes the frustration level brings tears to your eyes.

Now, I want open communication with my children. I want my kids to be able to come to me with problems.

I just don’t want it every three minutes. And not because they can’t work out between themselves whose turn it is to play with that specific toy (despite there being an identical version of that toy laying two metres away neglected).

Or because someone refused to play a certain game. Or won’t play at all. Or – my personal favourite – because “she looked at me funny”. It drives me crazy. My girls are five now and I tend to think they should be able to sort out the vast majority of these earth-shattering ‘problems’ without parental intervention. But how do you get the balance between being there for them and making them fend for themselves?

My friend Courtney got fed up with the constant barrage of dobbing and declared, “Unless someone is bleeding or dead, don’t bother telling me. Sort it out yourselves”. Shortly afterwards her three year old (against the house rules) made himself a Milo, sneaked it into his bedroom and promptly spilled it all over the plush carpet. With the help of his six year old sister – and co-conspirator – the kids tried to clean it themselves (one square of paper towel, some vigorous scrubbing and a lot of whispered, “You’re in so much trouble!”) but, as no one was bleeding or dead, they didn’t tell Mum. It was quite a while before she discovered the mess and the error of her hardcore approach.

But telling is not all bad. It’s proof that our kids know the difference between right and wrong.  The trick is to teach them they don’t need to prove it over and over again.

How? Well for starters we have to teach them there’s a difference between tattling (to get someone in trouble) or telling (to get help). Between an incident done on purpose and one by accident.

I wish I could give you a magic formula (oh, how I wish there was one) but like so many things with children it’s a matter of communication and consistent messages. Plus, maybe a little less screaming. And while it won’t be easy and will require a lot of deep breaths on our part, instilling positive communication skills in our kids will last a long, long time.

Even longer than it took Courtney to get the smell out of the carpet.

Not many people know this but I organised our wedding. My bride, Sandra, wanted to elope because it was all too much hassle but I wanted a celebration of the moment with friends and family.

She declared that if I wanted it then I could organise it. So I did. Everything except the bridal dress. And while it wasn’t perfect and I certainly made some errors, the night was wonderful.

I’m proud that I managed to scale the Mount Everest of planning and survived. Why then is planning a birthday party for kids so stressful? When the girls were younger birthdays weren’t a huge thing but now they have the date marked on their calendar (literally) and on any given day can tell you how many sleeps until their special day.

They have constantly changing ideas about the cakes they want, what sort of theme it will be, what they’ll wear, what lollies they’ll eat. Just about everything is on the Power Toddler’s birthday agenda.

Except presents, oddly. I don’t know if this is normal or not but my girls don’t talk about what presents they want. They’ve hardly asked for anything, ever.

But colours of ribbons and streamers? Rhapsody and Gypsy are a walking colour chart of opinions and ideas. They’re like party planners themselves at times. Little dictators planning the perfect event.

I’m exaggerating of course but that’s just because they can’t quite read and this might be my last chance to mock them without retribution.

Even though my battles with wedding people were legendary (I didn’t bother telling half of them it was for a wedding so I got normal prices which they later tried to inflate when they discovered what it was for), it pales into comparison with turbo toddlers.

Disagreeing with the caterer that snail would be great and should be complimented with a lemon vinegar is nothing on Rhapsody’s demands of “all food must be green and sweet”. And let me tell you, they have vastly different ideas on bubbly drinks.

The florist tried to push orchids that looked like man-eating triffids on me but that was better than Gypsy’s ever-changing decoration palette which went from “fifty million rainbow streamers” to “Make it like Frozen! Let’s get real snow Daddy!”

Wedding seating plans can be a juggle but factoring in siblings and parents who may or may not stay and who may or may not have screaming babies adds a whole other level of logistic hell. And will it be one parent or two? Do we need beer for the dads?

Even if Sandra had been a controlling Bridezilla I would only have one cake to worry about. But I have twins who each want a different cake of their own. And I’m refusing to talk about party bags other than to acknowledge they’re a pain in the banquet.

In fact, looking back the wedding was a walk in the park (or in our case a dance on the island) compared to the trials and tribulations of the toddler birthday hordes. If the girls had their way it would be a riot of colour and a kaleidoscope of constant activity. Budget and my sanity be damned.

You know what? I think next year we’ll just renew our vows instead.

THERE ARE SOME THINGS YOU ACCEPT AND EVEN ANTICIPATE AS A PARENT. YOUR BACKSEAT WILL NEVER BE CLEAN FOR MORE THAN FIVE MINUTES EVER AGAIN. YOU WILL REPEATEDLY MENTION POO IN CASUAL CONVERSATION AS IF IT’S NOTHING.

Your iPhone/iPad will at some point be full of selfies the kids somehow took without you noticing. You will have to leave shopping, a movie or an event early because of the wailing toddler on your arm. You will develop immunities to embarrassment in public.

And you will also experience highs you never thought possible, watching them grow and experience life.

But then there are things you will NOT be able to foresee. In fact you will end up doing some things you swore you would never do. Personally I had promised myself to never say, “Because I said so!”

It always seemed to be arbitrary and unfair in a nonspecific way and I got through
the first four years as a daddy without uttering it. But any parent will tell you there comes a time when frustration gets the better of you after the 47th time a request is met with, “but why?”

I also cerebrally know you should be consistent and not back down. And yet I may, on occasion, have given in with, “okay, but just this once”.

I said I’d never lie to them, and by and large I haven’t. But, “No, we don’t have any chocolate” and “No McDonalds today – they’ve run out of <whatever>” may have passed my lips a few times now.

And forget the things I was consciously going to avoid. What about the things I could never imagine myself saying?

“Get your hand out of the toilet!”
“We do not eat poo!”

“Do not kiss your sister with your tongue!” (My wife Sandra’s response – through laughter – was “Video it next time for their 21st!”). “Seriously, how many fairy wands do we need? And where have they all gone?”

“We don’t ride bikes on the couch!”

But the number one thing I never thought I’d utter and mean it? Non-parents will probably think I’m trying to be funny here but those of you with kids will nod and understand when I say the most unexpected utterance is when you genuinely ask, “What day is it?”

With so much talk of bullying today it’s little wonder that us parents stress about how our kids will fare when inevitably faced with what appears to be a regular part of modern school-life.

It’s a prospect that has certainly bothered me but when Rhapsody came home from pre-prep recently to tell me about one of her friends teasing another friend I wasn’t initially sure how to react. She wasn’t directly involved but she was obviously uneasy about it.

Without thought I told her that if it happened again to tell the person who was picking on someone else that name-calling/teasing wasn’t nice and to hold your friend’s hand.

It wasn’t till afterwards I wondered whether I’d thwarted a bully only by creating another one. Especially given Rhaps’ rather . . . um . . . ‘forceful’ style of communication (a bluntness inherited from her mother).

And could standing up to a bully only make her a target as well? Or further antagonise the bully?

Oh, the paranoia that went through my brain. Concerned, I sought out Steve McLuckie – a fellow regular panellist on ABC Radio’s Parenting Panels (Thursdays after 10am) – who just happens to also be the principal of Southport State School for some advice.

What he had to say was truly heart-warming. He reminded me of when we were at school and how, when someone was being bullied, most people stood behind the bully. Not because they supported them directly but mostly because they were happy to be out of the firing line. This silent assent was part of the problem. In contrast, Steve talked about anti-bullying programs, such as at his school where students stand by the person being bullied and point out that the words or behaviour used by the bully aren’t nice or acceptable.

By robbing the bully of support it not only discourages bullying but often helps foster more social behaviour in the child who was doing the bullying (and while it’s not an excuse, we should remember that sometimes these behaviours demonstrate that the child needs help). It was a wonderful concept and, more
importantly, it appears to be working. A few weeks later I saw it firsthand in my daughters and their friends during a tennis lesson. One of the girls became frustrated and, after another mistake, lashed out in an all-too human way.

What I didn’t expect was the other girls coming together to politely chide her and tell her that it wasn’t nice to yell at the other girl. It wasn’t aggressive and didn’t alienate the initial girl. Quite the opposite – it included her and she calmed down amongst her friends.

It was an incredibly poignant scene as you have to remember we’re talking about four year old girls here. At that age, they’re emotions on legs and don’t easily respond to reasoned words (or any words for that matter). But within seconds a potential explosion was defused.

It made my heart soar and also realise that maybe I needn’t worry quite so much. I won’t always be there and they will inevitably come across bullying or criticism from their peers but maybe, just maybe, they’re not as powerless as my protective brain thinks.

Part of having very active kids is the inevitable accidents and incidents. And first time parents panic easily when faced with injuries and potential harm.

But fear not, you can learn from my experiences (and the fact my best friend Paul is a respected medical professional).

ELBOW – I once inadvertently dislocated Rhapsody’s elbow. I was walking hand-in-hand when she protested about wanting something, threw her feet up in the air and dead-weighted herself. I felt terrible and like an abusive parent despite not actually having done anything other than hold on to her hand while she threw a tantrum. I’m assured this is very common in young kids and, as I learnt, pretty easily fixed in seconds once medical staff are confident it’s just a radial head subluxation.

FOREIGN OBJECTS IN THE NOSE – Barbie shoes are hard to remove from the nostril. Trust me. If you can’t easily remove a foreign object from the nose go to the Emergency Department. The stories they tell . . .

AND THE MOUTH – Kids will inevitably swallow things. Most, such as small coins, rocks and marbles will pass but medical experts will always want to ensure there is no blockage to the airways. The photos they have . . .

BUTTON BATTERIES – Having said that, there are some things that require immediate urgent medical attention if swallowed. Small button batteries (such as watch batteries and toy batteries) represent a VERY high risk of serious harm. Do not delay seeking assistance. AND KEEP THEM AWAY FROM KIDS.

DISLODGED TOOTH – If a tooth gets knocked out then there is a chance – even if it’s slight – it can be saved. Immediately immerse it in milk or saliva. There’s no guarantee, but it will increase the odds.

BURNS – Burns can be common but need to be dealt with properly. The burn needs to be exposed to cold running water for at least 20 minutes. Do not ice a burn and do not bath it – cool or cold running water only.

HEAD KNOCK – If it’s a bad bump go straight to hospital where they will observe the child for a period of time. Do not expect an automatic CAT scan as there are very good reasons they will avoid scanning unless necessary.

POISON – One of my twins once came from her bedroom in the middle of the night glowing in the dark. She’d been chewing on a glow stick. Panic ensued in the parents. If your child swallows something you’re unsure of, ring the poison hotline (13 11 26). They’re incredible and their advice is invaluable.

TICKS – There is a lot of misinformation about how to remove ticks and most of it is NOT for Australian conditions, which are indeed different. The current line of thought highlights freezing them off, which is done by a medical professional. Not you with an ice pack. Or a stubby.

SNAKE BITES –  Do not wash the wound as hospitals have venom kits that can identify the venom, do not tourniquet (put a clean hankie over the bite and immobilise the rest of the limb with a compression bandage) and do not try to suck out the venom (Hollywood movies have taught you poorly – this doesn’t work and you could actually end up envenomating yourself).

POSSIBLE SPIDER BITES – Marks, scratches and pricks from running through the grass? No Emergency Department will ever be upset you’re checking, so don’t worry about ‘wasting their time’. This is a child’s life we’re talking about. So if in doubt, check it out.

Which is actually the recurring theme: don’t be afraid to get professional advice. Don’t worry about appearances, embarrassment or seeming paranoid. Ring 131 HEALTH or go to your Emergency Department. They are here to help.

And if the Barbie shoes in the nose becomes a regular thing then perhaps you need to buy the board game Operation. Or stop buying Barbie dolls.