Trey Connell

My daughter just turned 18 months old yesterday. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that losing your temper and raising your voice in an effort to force her to obey is akin to kicking a boulder as hard as you can – without shoes on. Like that boulder, my daughter just doesn’t care.

In the months leading up to Addison’s birth, I thought many times about the types of discipline we would use and how I wanted to be one of those “I’m your Father not your friend” parents. I thought the stern, raised voice and mean looks were valid disciplinary actions and an effective means of modifying your child’s behavior. Boy, was I ever wrong.

After about 15 months, I realized I was getting nowhere. My daughter still got into the same things I’d tried to keep her out of since she could crawl. She still went right off to the next off-limits area as soon as I yelled at her. It’s like “big bear daddy” didn’t phase her at all.

One day about 3 months ago I decided to go the exact opposite.  If she did something bad, I would simply shake my head no at her and move her away from whatever she was doing (or whatever it was away from her). After a couple of weeks I noticed her looking at me first before grabbing things like my iPhone or the cat’s tail. She was beginning to realize that what she was doing was wrong, and she was checking with me to see if anything had changed since the last time. Simultaneously, I started being over-the-top congratulatory for anything she did well. Throw your garbage in the trash can? Woohoo!!! Put your dirty socks in the laundry basket? Jumping around and shouts of happiness! Leave Daddy’s iPhone where it is when you point at it and I shake my head? Hugs and kisses all around!

And you know what? It works. I mean, it really works. She now behaves better than ever, and while she’s not perfect (and no child is) she is respectful of Daddy and wants to please me more than she wants to grab the iPhone.

This is just a bit of new Dad information I thought I might share with any of you who, like me, think yelling and being a big bad wolf is the best way to get your child’s attention.

Today is my dad’s birthday so I decided to post a video of his granddaughter having a good time in celebration (well, we’ll pretend she actually knows it’s his birthday).  I used my new iPhone 3Gs since I didn’t feel like busting out the regular video camera and going through all the importing and exporting jazz.

I have to say I’m a bit surprised. Even after exporting from iPhoto and using MPEG Streamclip to convert it to flash format, the video doesn’t look half bad at only 3 Mb in flash format and 640 x 480 resolution.

Take a look:

By now I’m sure you’ve all seen the Burger King commercial that has come under fire for being too racy for kids. Basically, Burger King combines an old song – “Baby Got Back” – by Sir Mix-a-lot with the Spongebob Squarepants cartoon with the Burger King character (mascot?) dancing around to the music. Oh and they throw in girls (of course).

The commercial features teenage girls in short shorts and tall socks dancing and shaking their asses which are square-shaped ala Spongebob’s body. It sort of reminds me of the Britney Spears video for “Baby One More Time” except the girls look more like sexy UPS truck drivers, and I feel more disgusted than simply uncomfortable.

Burger King states the commercial is geared towards adults, but I don’t see how that’s the case given they’re using a popular children’s cartoon to promote kids’ meals. I wish they would just come out and call it what it is – a gross attempt at marketing using one of the oldest tricks in the book. And that is that in this day and age, almost any negative attention can be turned into profitable attention.

“The King” was creepy enough already with his huge plastic head and frozen-in-time exaggerated smile (kind of like the mask popularized by the movie Scream).  But now Burger King has managed to take him from creepy like a halloween mask to creepy like that guy in line at the grocery store who leers a little too long at your 12 year old.

It’s not that I think the commercial could potentially corrupt children or anything like that. But it’s just a ridiculous way of promoting fast food, and it feels as though Burger King was scraping the bottom of the barrel in desperation to generate some buzz. Well, congratulations Burger King marketing dude – you succeeded. But how stupid do you look now?

One final point I’d like to make is that Burger King supposedly joined an organization in an attempt to promote better living for children.

From Wikipedia:

On 12 September 2007, Burger King announced that it was joining the The Council of Better Business Bureaus Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative. The program, a voluntary self-regulation program designed to shift advertising messages aimed at children so that they encourage healthier eating habits and lifestyles.

What are your thoughts?  Share your comments below!

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A coworker has a little baby that’s a couple of months older than my daughter. While we were chatting one day, he told me about the Bumbo Chair. He used it all the time for his daughter – even during family dinner where his baby would sit in the middle of the dining table.

We purchased one and have been using it for about 6 weeks – ever since our daughter turned 3 months. The chair is made of very soft rubber and is molded to provide maximum support. So even though your baby can’t sit up on her own yet, the chair allows her to stay upright with no help from you. This helps to build baby’s neck strength and get her used to sitting up.

Once your baby gets ready for solid food, this chair provides the perfect seat to feed her in before she grows and graduates to a full high chair. You can even purchase a plastic tray that connects to the front of the chair. It’s great for holding toys and food.

We’ve bought a lot of “stuff” for our baby over the past 5 months, but the Bumbo Chair is definitely one of the more valuable purchases we’ve made.

Today we took our 4 month old daughter to get earrings. My wife thought it better to do it early on before she started pulling at her ears and so she would never remember having it done. Apparently my wife had her ears pierced when she was around 2 years old, and they stayed infected due to her constantly messing with them.

I don’t know why, but I felt odd about the whole thing. She’s so young! Of course I want her to have her ears pierced, but I just didn’t think it would happen so soon. It’s such a huge event for such a tiny child. But the logic in my wife’s argument won me over so off we went.

We decided to go to Merle Norman close to our house. Two young ladies were running the store, and they both picked up on my apprehension almost immediately. Of course, I didn’t exactly try to hide it either. They both looked relatively sane and competent, but I couldn’t resist asking them if they had done this before, how young the babies were, pros and cons, what to expect, and if they were SURE they could handle this. They laughed at me and assured me everything would be fine.

They first cleaned Addison’s ears really well with disinfectant pads. Then they marked the center of her earlobes with a pink marker and had us confirm that’s where we wanted the holes to be. Both ladies then lined up their “guns” and counted to 3. And POW – it was over.

Addison sat there with startled, wide eyes for about half a second and then proceeded to shatter all the glass in the store. I was shocked, horrified, furious, and pretty sure I was going to vomit right on the floor in front of the counter. Then, much to my surprise, Addison quit crying and started smiling. SMILING???

That’s right. The pain lasted about 30 seconds (apparently) and then she was back to her old happy-go-lucky baby self. I on the other hand had to take deep breaths and try to keep from being sick for a good hour after we left the store.

I consider myself a pretty strong guy. Blood doesn’t bother me. I clean up puke and other vile things with the best of them. I used to hunt and clean my own animals before I ate them for God’s sake. But there’s something about my tiny little baby girl that can reduce me to a quivering mess in no time flat.

I kind of like it.

I used to say that video games have zero impact on a person’s psyche. Then I started reading stories and even witnessing a case or two of video game addicition. Some people even joke that video games caused their divorce. That’s a little disturbing, but it doesn’t really turn your head and cause any long term contemplation about the negative effect of video games on society.

This, on the other hand, does:  A 17 year old boy from Ohio has been convicted of murdering his mother after she and his father took away his Halo 3 video game. In October 2007, the boy shot his mother and father, but the father managed to live. The boy ran away – supposedly with the copy of Halo 3 in hand.

As I look at my 3 month old daughter, I cannot imagine how a child makes it to that kind of state of mind. What happened? Was it some disorder this boy was born with? Was he mistreated in some way – maybe at home or at school? What caused him to go right over the edge and commit MURDER over something as simple as being punished by his parents?

While I acknowledge the fact that video games can be somewhat addictive (I currently play Fable 2 whenever I get a chance), I cannot think that the game itself is to blame for this boy’s behavior. Halo 3 is not even what I would consider a violent game. There’s no blood and gore or deviant behavior. It’s the video game equivalent of Star Wars, and what kid was messed up by seeing Star Wars?  None that I’m aware of.

Every time I see a story like this, it makes me wish I could have been a fly on the wall to see what went wrong with this young man, partly because I’m interested in the science of it and partly because I have a daughter that I hope stays just as perfect as she is now.

You can read the full story at CNET.

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Fight Baby Colic with Dr. Brown

My daughter has been suffering from what seems to be colic for about 2 weeks now.  It usually starts in the early evening and lasts about 3 hours.  For those of you unfamiliar with the term colic, it’s a condition that commonly occurs in infants where they cry uncontrollably for hours at a time for seemingly no reason whatsoever.  They eat great, need regular diaper changes, and are completely content and happy for most of the day.

There is no accepted cause of colic; although, most seem to attribute it to gas in the baby’s digestive system that causes pain and discomfort.  If you walk down the bottle aisle of your local Target or Wal-Mart, you’ll see no shortage of marketing on the outside of the packaging claiming to cure or alleviate symptons for a baby with colic.  My wife and I have tried them all lately – or we thought we had…

During a visit with my family in Missouri, my brother and his wife told us about bottles by Dr. Brown.  Their baby shows signs of colic, and they started using the Dr. Brown bottles to see if they would help.  Magically, after a couple of days, their baby stopped the incessant crying in the evening time.

Full of renewed hope, my wife and I drove to the nearest Wal-Mart and bought 8 Dr. Brown bottles.  We started using them last Saturday afternoon.  We immediately noticed a change that evening.  Addison cried a little less than normal and actually went to sleep around 8:30 that night.  Sunday was a bad day as we had to drive 7 hours back home.  That fact alone accounted for a bit of fussiness on Sunday night, but again – no unending screaming.  Yesterday, Addison went all day with zero crying episodes.  Sure she cried every now and then when her diaper was wet or when she was hungry, but it appears the Dr. Brown bottles have helped her stop the colic episodes in the evening.

We’re keeping our fingers crossed that this evening goes well, and I’m feeling pretty optimistic at this point.  Needless to say, I feel like 1000 lbs have been lifted from my shoulders.  Nothing is worse than having your baby scream for hours when you know she’s in pain and there’s nothing you can do about it.

If you think they may be able to help you, you can purchase them from Wal-Mart, Target, or even Amazon.com.

Top 10 Tips for New Dads

My daughter is now 14 days old, and I’ve learned a lot over the past 2 weeks. I’d like to share my top 10 tips list with other fathers-to-be out there. Hopefully it will make your first days with your new child a bit less surprising.

1. Ask questions until you’re blue in the face. Doctors and nurses are paid to help you. Make them earn it.
2. Do not buy into the “tough love” approach so early. Hold your baby every chance you get.
3. Sleep when your baby sleeps – you’ll both be much happier.
4. Put down the books. They offer guidelines for the norm. I can guarantee your baby won’t read that book nor will they suddenly follow every rule presented on Day 5. Don’t freak out if her stool does not go from black tar to “yellow and seedy” by precisely 5 PM on the day the book tells you.
5. Take a break. Invite family over, let them entertain the baby, and go get some quiet time for at least an hour.
6. Trust in mommy’s intuition. When she says the baby does not want any more food, listen to her. Otherwise you only have yourself to blame for the vomit on your face.
7. Get the new diaper on QUICKLY. A naked baby is an invitation to get peed on.
8. Burping is CRITICAL. Otherwise the last point on #6 applies.
9. Your baby is tough. Just because they scream when you change their diaper or clothes does not mean you are contorting their limbs at unnatural angles. They’re just being pissy, and those baby wipes are cold.
10. When you first hear your baby have a bowel movement, do not rush to change her. I can guarantee there is more to come in the next 5 minutes. You’ll know when she’s done as her face will no longer look like a tomato.