When Hubbin and I met, my oldest daughter was 2. He has, since day one, been absolutely wonderful with her; couldn’t ask for more from him. For obvious reasons, I handled all the discipline that involved more than a general reprimand. While he’s usually agreed with what I’ve done, there were distinct points when she was younger that I knew he disagreed with how I chose to handle things (especially before we got married, and I was on my own and she was younger). There were occasions where it was very obvious that he would “never tolerate” that, had it been up to him. Now, mind you, he’s never been the strict disciplinarian he thought he was. One blink from Kennedy’s big blue eyes and he would just melt. He is a bit softer than he would have admitted, but still held very high expectations.
You learn, though, pretty early on if you’re lucky, that you have to pick your battles with a tiny toddler terrorist. And some days, after working 12 hours, it’s just not worth arguing about stupid stuff. So you make concessions and you give in to stuff that you swore you would neeeeeever do. Before we had The Little Jerk, I said “Just you wait. You wait until it’s been a long day, and you’re exhausted and she’s fussy and you’ll give in too. You just wait.” Not Hubbin, though; he was going to be Strict Daddy. Strict Daddy enforces dinner time, and Strict Daddy won’t be picking any battles because Strict Daddy won’t be teaching any children that you can whine your way out of something you don’t like.
Strict Daddy, indeed, my friends. I snapped this last night:
The Little Jerk, for the win.
In case you are wondering what that is, that would be Strict Daddy, feeding The Little Jerk yogurt for dinner while she jumps up and down on the couch and watches television.
Case. Dismissed.
