The Crazy 4-Year-Old Thinks She Owns The Place, But The Parents Are Cool

I’m not one to complain about other people’s kids much…. well, to be honest that’s a lie – maybe once in awhile.

The neighbors on my cul-de-sac are really nice people; the wife and I seriously couldn’t have been luckier (except for that one house, with the teenager and his guitar problem...)

We do stuff with them on occasion like wine paired potlucks, block parties with grilled oysters and martini’s, tapas and sangria, pho and some type of asian moonshine (ain’t no hot dogs and Bud light around these parts! Except maybe for the kids…)
Living in L.A. where you can live in a house for 30 years and not even once speak to the people next door, we struck gold.

Then there’s the 4-year-old next door. Now there’s a reason to close the garage immediately after pulling in with the car running, and a reason to lock the front door.

Just today when I got home and got out I hear a soft, but bold voice:

“Where’s Gillian?”
(Me looking up to the sky "God, Jesus,... Oprah...?" Then looking down - the little girl from next door with a very serious look on her face...)

Me: Hi Paige, she’s inside eating dinner and then she has to go to bed….
(She just walks inside the house from the garage…)

Great. How am I going to get rid of her this time?
Now my daughter just turned 2 last month -- is that even old enough to have kids knocking on the door asking “can (blah-blah) come out to play?” Or did I miss that chapter in my parenting manual?

For about 5-10 minutes I hear laughing and feet stomping upstairs from my daughters room (well, it can’t be all that bad, today…)
And then crying,...from mine. Everything was pulled out of every imaginable drawer, closet, new toys (for kids over 3 we never opened that were once hidden and boxed..)

“What’s the matter?”

Daughter: Paige won’t SHARE!....BAD PAIGE!!!

Me: Play nice you two, OK?

Paige: She’s not doing what I’m telling her to do….

Me: That’s because she’s 2 years-old, she doesn’t understand.

Paige: Well that’s why she needs to listen to me!

(pause)

Me: I think I hear your Dad calling you…

(please take the bait..."use the force...")

I walked her back to her house. And then 30 minutes later my daughter starts telling me she wants to play with Paige again.

O.k. fellow parents, help…!
How do you deal with pushy kids like this? The parents are cool, but they always just casually mention after their kid walks into my house “just walk her back over when the kids are done playing.”
I just can’t respond with “No, your daughter opens every imaginable drawer and closet in my house, makes my daughter cry, and I think she’s tracking dog poop under her feet into my house”
“Oh and by the way, are we still making sangria for the Labor day party...?”

Are We REALLY Teaching Our Kids To Be Afraid Of Men?!

Did anybody but me come across a very disturbing article in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ Online 8-23-07) last Thursday that was talking about how the media, child advocates, government agencies, businesses like airlines, etc. are all scarring parents and kids into thinking any man is a potential sexual abuser? Now I'm not one to get shocked easily but I nearly spit out my pomegranate smoothie when I read it.

Some of these "professionals" are even telling parents that men should never be allowed to baby-sit! (I babysat a friend's 8 year-old daughter not long ago... I taught her how to play poker while we watched Terminator 2 -- very important life skills!!)

Now me, being an EXTREMELY protective father of a daughter (remember Tony Danza in "She's Out Of Control" ..) I would never subscribe to that kind of stupid thinking that all men are child predators. And I don't want to raise a daughter who's afraid of half the population - that's pretty stupid! Instead I’m training her on how to use her instinct. And I'm also teaching her that pedophiles and sickos come in male OR female and of any race, age, sexual preference, whatever and what she should be really looking out for is CREEPY people. And that if anybody (male OR female) does anything to her to run, scream, hit whatever and tell ANY adult immediately (period.)

If I were to write a book, this would be chapter 7 entitled “Can you spot a CREEPY person?”

What about all of you; have you given this any thought? What do you think and how do you teach your kids about predators...?

I’m Friends With Santa Claus’s Daughter – Maybe I Can FINALLY Get That Porsche

Well, he’s not the real one but a professional one. So I was talking to this girl (I can’t say ‘woman’ because she’s younger than me like, 26 or 27... [by the way --is that sexist of me?]…) so this ‘young lady-girl’ I work with was telling me about her Dad whose been going to Santa school for 4 years has finally earned his Santa Bachelor’s degree.

“Whatchoutalkin’bout willis?!”

I never heard of such a thing. Apparently there’s a real Santa school somewhere back east (Charles W Howard) that’s been around for over 7,418 years! Well not really, more like 70 and the founder was on “Miracle on 34th Street” and is known in the Santa impersonator movement as “the Santa God.” (insert angelic choir)

Apparently this is serious stuff -- They take classes in:

• History and Folklore
• Child Psychology
• Naughty Kids
• Why do mommy and daddy always fight?
• Beard Grooming
• Are you friends with Jesus?
• Reindeer CPR
• Fire and Liability Insurance

So now I’m thinking - when I take my daughter in 3 months (yikes! Where’d the time go!) to the mall for pictures this year, I definitely want some type of accreditation (...for the fire insurance alone.)
I’m looking for that framed diploma on the wall, you know like what doctor’s have in those cheap oak frames. Because seriously I wouldn’t want a doctor without a diploma, why should Santa be the same, right?

(I have no idea how I get into these random topics with people…)