In my younger days I frequently woke up in strange places and had no idea where I was.  Construction zones, parks sleeping amongst homeless people, even a park bench in Scottsdale Arizona.  Those instances all had one thing in common, the over consumption of alcohol.  Now a days, other than when I’m on vacation, I’m fairly accustom to waking up in my own bed.  However, my kids seem to find ways to make sure I have interrupted and restless nights on a fairly frequent basis.  A routine has been established where I rub my kid’s backs, say their prayers, and then cuddle.  Somehow I ended up falling asleep with my oldest at roughly 9pm last night and ultimately awoke at 12:30 am with no idea where I was.  Once I was able to collect my thoughts and realized that I had fallen asleep accidentally, I went down stairs to grab my phone, which doubles as an alarm clock, and went to bed in my own bed.

Around 3ish my youngest awoke and demanded that his mom go into his room and sleep with him because he claimed to be scared.  It was a half yell/half cry and my wife’s response was “I’m sweaty and naked so you are going to have to go see what his deal is.”  Sweaty and naked?  How come I didn’t know about this?  And why didn’t I have anything to do with your current condition?  Regardless, I didn’t have time for questions out of fear that my youngest would wake up my oldest and it would be a complete shit show.  My youngest demanded that I sleep in his bed with him, and due to the fact that it was 3am and he had all the leverage, I obliged.  As I got into bed with him I let one go and he immediately responded by asking “did you fart daddy?”  I probably could have blamed it on one of his stuffed animals, or possibly even him,  but due to my lack of sleep I merely admitted to my transgression told him to slide over a little more so that I had enough room to fully sprawl out, and attempted to fall asleep.

Not only is my three year old more fidgety than a Meth addict who can’t score any  Meth, he sleeps on a  twin IKEA bed.  I think IKEA is Swedish for ultra shitty furniture, and there is a high likelihood that if I continue to join him in bed his bed is going to fall apart like a Chinese motor cycle.  (Who knows, now that China is such a world power and may be half way decent at building things the saying moving forward may have to be “it’s going to fall apart like Swedish furniture”)

I wish I could say this was an isolated incident, but it happens quite frequently, both me farting in the middle of the night and me having to get into one of my kid’s beds to placate them or having one of them climb into our bed. My resolve as a parent is usually mediocre at best, but in the middle of the night it is non-existent.  I guess the big question is, what are the long term consequences of allowing your children to run rough shod over you regarding bedtime protocol along with their constant refusals to remain in their beds?  Was Hitler’s mom a sucker when it came to bed time?  Did Donald Trump’s parents come running to climb into bed with him upon his first request for their immediate presence?  What were the short comings in Justin Beiber’s parent’s parenting style?

Obviously there are certain parenting choices that lead to obvious and immediate consequences.  Allowing your kids to eat candy after every meal or feeding them McDonalds six times a week will lead to their teeth falling out of their head and along with acquiring an uncanny resemblance to honey boo boo.  Coddling them, well it isn’t immediately evident that this leads to problems, but it’s quite evident that when kids know they can screw with their parents they screw with their parents.

This is primarily the reason I avoid hanging out with people who have well behaved children, it magnifies my shortcomings as a parent and makes it even more obvious that there will be consequences for my inability to be firm with my children.  One of my friends claimed his children behaved well on their car ride back from Florida, while I would like to think this is complete bullshit, I have been around his kids enough to know that it is entirely possible.  Whereas, had I dared venture with my kids down to Florida in an automobile, the only way my kids would have actually made it to Florida is if we were only driving when they slept, so it probably would have taken us 12 days just to get down to Florida and we would have ended up flying home.

Likewise, I’m sure most parents are hesitant to let their kids be exposed to the Jansma’s.  I’m sure the fact that it makes them realize “yeah we’re doing the right thing in how we parent” is offset by the reality that any exposure to our kids could send their’s into a complete tailspin, our kids are the equivalent of Ebola, any type of contact could lead to life altering consequences.

When I tell stories about my poor parenting to other parents part of my rational for admitting to such parental negligence is in the hopes that they will also share stories of their parental shortcomings.  Rarely does this ever happen, am I the only one who is being dominated by his children routinely?  Another rational is so that the parents I am speaking with will assure me that I am doing a fine job (similar to when your wife tells you she looks fat in something and she is expecting you to tell her she looks lovely) the only problem is these parents, unlike me with my wife, have absolutely no incentive to lie to me and tell me I am doing a fine job.  Oh well, looks like I am going to have to come up with something more creative than farting on my kid to avoid having to spend half the night in his IKEA bed.