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So, we’re doing our part to make our girl neurotic.  For the most part, she’s a carefree, happy kid.  Sure, she’s got her shy or cautious moments, but shy and cautious aren’t the same as neurotic.  Here’s how we’re doing our part to put our kid on a shrink’s couch in a couple decades:

•Getting The Pumpkin to brush her teeth properly has always been a challenge.  Usually presenting her with the alternative—getting brushed by mama or daddy—does the trick.  And lately, she’s been enjoying brushing in time to mama’s rendition of “The Lonely Goatherd” from “The Sound of Music.”  But sometimes, we do pull out the threats of holes in her teeth.  As in, if you don’t brush, you’ll get holes in your teeth.  And the passive-aggressive classic variation, “The Pumpkin doesn’t want to brush, okay, that’s okay, she wants holes in her teeth—let’s go to bed now.”  So we pulled this the other night, actually getting her out of the tub (yes, she brushes in the tub during her bath), and she freaked. out.  Started crying, wailing with exhaustion, “I don’t want holes in my teeth!  I don’t want holes in my teeth!”  Took a minute to calm her down enough to brush through the tears.

•We’re not always the best with the putting on of the sunscreen, but in a place like Bakersfield, we’ve gotta try.  Somehow, I don’t think The Pumpkin’s ever gotten a sunburn yet (knock on wood).  Since summer began, and with it our parade of triple digit temperatures [and please don’t say anything resembling “at least it’s a dry heat”], I’ve been applying sunscreen to her exposed skin when I drop her off at school.  Okay, fine, the protective power probably runs out way before their afternoon jaunt outside, but still.  She knows that sunscreen, or as she pronounces it, “sunscreem,” is to protect her skin from sunburn, even though she doesn’t know what that feels like.  Well, the other day after a trip down south, I discovered that we’d left the tube that lives in the car at Grandma’s house.  “My sunscreem!  My sunscreem!”  I tried to reassure her, tell her to come inside when she felt hot, stay in the shade.  No dice.  The first thing she said to one of her teachers when we walked in, voice full of sadness, was, “We left my sunscreem at my Grandma’s house.”  That teacher, helpfully, offered to apply some of the kiddie sunscreen she had in her bag for her own child to our girl’s burnished skin.  And I went and got another tube of sunscreen for the car.

•She’s less neurotic about this now, but when we first started putting her on her tricycle and riding around the neighborhood, I tried to get her to accept the uncomfortable Dora toddler helmet by telling her the story of my bicycle accident.  I was in the 6th grade, miles from home, riding down a busy main street just so I could say I had gotten that far, and I swerved too quickly to avoid a car door and then get back to the curb, away from traffic.  I lost two teeth—but, as I say in my cautionary tale, if I hadn’t been wearing a helmet, my head might’ve gotten split open.  So, while she’ll tool around the backyard without the helmet now, in the beginning, my lesson worked too well.  If I thought she didn’t need to gear all up because we weren’t going in the street, I’d try to get her to just get on without the helmet.  Noooo!  My helmet!  Mama asks, “Why can’t you ride without your helmet, baby?”  “Because my head will break open.”  Way to instill the confidence there, daddy.

•For some reason, even though she’s fine on her own at school, when she’s with us, sometimes she still wants us to wipe her.  “I need help!” she’ll call from down the hall.  Of course, you never know when that’ll randomly alternate with the polar opposite: “I can do it all. by. myself!”  Okaaay....  But anyway, back in the early days of potty-training, in order to impress upon her the importance of personal hygiene, I decided that the easiest way to make sure she cleaned herself was to tell her she had to wipe a certain number of times.  Four times for poop, two times for pee.  So, not that she actually follows this herself all the time, especially at school, but woe to the parent who, assessing the situation, decides that less than the required number of wipes is needed when called upon to “help.”  “You only did one!”  “That wasn’t four!”  “You did it wrong!”  Oy....

•On the cruise we recently went on, there were jumbo-sized dispenser of Purell-style hand sanitizer everywhere—on random walls, on moveable poles at the entrance to restaurants, at the top and bottom of the gangplank to shore.  La dra. loved this.  But if we ever tried to go to dinner without stopping at the dispenser—”My gel!  My gel!”  Like she was gonna get diptheria or something instantly if we didn’t give her some Purell.

So, what have you done to guarantee a lifetime of analysis for your little ones?

[crossposted from daddyinastrangeland.com]