Baby Dumpling's Poppa

U.S. Credit Rating Cut-Debt Crises-SNAFU in Washington D.C.

Last week the U.S. credit rating was downgraded by China and the S&P. China is not a major credit rating agency so no one really cares. Should they? Yes. China loans the U.S. more money than anyone and they hold the largest amount of U.S. bonds and notes. If China doesn't loan the U.S. money then the U.S. Government will not be able to pay anyone anything.

How does this mess get fixed? Americans looked to the Government to fix the problem. Did they? NO. Instead of fixing the problem they acted like a bunch of 2 year olds. Baby Dumpling is more mature at the age of 3 than those politicians in D.C.

Again, I ask how does this mess get fixed?

I came up with some solutions or ideas that could fix this problem, but there are a few things that need to be changed. Social Security and Medicare should not be classified as entitlements. Working people have been putting money into Social Security their entire working life. People have been putting money into medicare since daddy Bush said, "Read my lips, no new taxes." Now if I put my money into the bank and one day the bank said they have decided not to give me my money when it was time, that would probably be cause for a lawsuit. Why should the government be any different? The politicians borrowed my money and promised to pay it back, now they don't want too. Sounds a lot like the banking industry over the past few years. If the politicians leave Social Security and medicare alone, do not touch that money for anything, there wouldn't be a problem with those programs paying what is needed. Social Security has been bringing in more money than it pays out every year for decades. These programs are not entitlements, these programs are our retirement savings accounts. If politicians cut these programs then the first thing they need to get rid of is the income cap. Regardless of how much money make, you pay into these programs.

So leave Social Security and medicare alone!!!

Now getting to my point of what can be done to fix the problem. Cut Foreign Aid for 2 years, granted that's only about $120 billion, but it's a start. Next repeal the Bush Jr. tax cuts for 10 years. Big companies like GE should pay a federal tax on profits. If these companies like the safety and security of doing business in the U.S. then they need to pay their share. No more tax breaks for businesses. They pay a flat 15% income tax on profits. Any company that sent jobs overseas during the past 15 years will pay an additional 15% to compensate the government for unemployment. Any company that has someone in a foreign country do business on their behalf in this country must pay an additional, "Revenue Lost Tax" of 5%. If these companies want to reduce their income tax by 20% then they can always bring the jobs back to the U.S. where they belong. The U.S. taxpayer bailed out the banks at a tune, according to some, $100 billion. We want it back now plus interest. I feel the banks owe more because the government has been buying their bad loans to the tune of trillions. We make them pay that back plus interest.

So there's how the budget gets fixed, but what about getting the economy going again? Instead of loaning banks and Wall Street money at 0% interest, our government should loan the people money at 0% interest. The money can be guaranteed through income tax returns. It's not fair that banks can borrow my tax dollar at 0% and loan it back to me at 30% interest. I say the American people should be allowed to borrow tax dollar at 0% interest, but up to a limit of about $10-20,000. That money would most likely be spent on things that will get the economy moving at high speed and unemployment would drop like a brick. The government would be bringing more money because more people are working...

Let's go further with generating money for the government to piss away on projects like the study of pig flatulence for $2 million. The government sells oil to refineries with conditions that the fuel produced is not exported and the price of fuel is reduced by 75%. We sell them oil for $28 barrel, effectively cutting the price of oil world wide. That will generate money and speed up economic recovery or put the economy into overdrive.

It would be nice if people comment with better ideas or suggestions to make these ideas better, then maybe the government will do something besides act like a bunch of 2 year old children with poop filled diapers.

Cat in a Tree

It is very stressful when your cat climbs a tree and refuses to climb down. Most of us think that when the cat gets hungry enough they will come down, but this doesn't always work.

This past week our cat, Kahlua, decided to climb up a tree and not come down. When I first found him, day 2, he was only about 40-50 feet up, day. There wasn't much I could do that night, so I told him to stay there and I'll think of something tomorrow, as if cats really can understand instructions like that.

The next morning, day 3, I went to check on him and try to figure out what I can do to get him down. Instead of climbing down Kahlua decided to climb up to the top of this very tall tree. Now he was closer to 80 feet up and crying much louder than the night before. I cleared the area around the tree and tied a few tarps to protect him in case he fell when he tried to climb down.

On day 4 I tried to entice him by leaving a can of food at the bottom of the tree. Although he could see the can I was hoping he might be able to smell it and try to climb down, I also threw some up into the tree. At this point I was starting to run out of ideas to get him to come down.

On day 5 I had the idea of using 30# fishing line and a round heavy weight to get a rope into the tree so I could send a bowl of food up, again hoping the smell would make him want to climb down. This didn't work either. That night I started searching to figure out if there is someone that would climb the tree and attempt to rescue my cat. I search was a success. I found a site called, "Cat in a Tree Rescue" that provided a directory of people that will climb a tree to rescue cats, birds, animals, model planes, etc. from around the country and a few places around the world.

On day 6 I called "Dan the Rescue Man" and asked if he could come and rescue my cat from a very tall tree. Dan didn't ask many questions about the tree or how high the cat was up; instead he just asked me what my address was, verified my phone number and said he'll be at my house that afternoon. Dan showed up at my door, introduced himself and said he'll get his gear. I took him to the tree, pointed to the location of Kahlua and Dan started setting up to make the climb. Before I knew it he was almost half way up, moving quickly and quietly. In less than 30 minutes from arriving at my front door he was within a few feet of Kahlua. As I watched, it looked like Dan was explaining to Kahlua what he was doing and all of a sudden Dan called down to me saying, "I got him." Then Dan arranged his rope and came down the tree with Kahlua in the rescue bag. Dan handed me the bag and I quickly took Kahlua into the house where food, water and litter box were set up. Kahlua ate a few bites, then went to the litter box. When he was finally finished going pottie he proceeded to consume almost 2 cans of white fish in sauce.

After making sure that Kahlua didn't need to be rushed to the emergency vet clinic, I took a few minutes to chat with Dan about the donation thing on his website. He explained that he accepts donations to help pay for maintaining the website also sometimes helps pay for rescues if there is no one to pay. Dan doesn't charge a lot for the rescue, so not only was I happy to pay him for the rescue of Kahlua I made an additional donation to his site to help support what he's doing. He and the people listed on website directory are providing a great service saving animals and bringing happiness to families.

Dan should be awarded the Diego animal rescue patch because he is a real life animal rescuer.

Please visit "Cat in a Tree Rescue" website, look around and if possible make a donation to this very worthy cause.

Price Gouging at the Pump part 2

I have been reading the headlines about the price of oil shooting up at an incredible rate like most people. The press and government claim this is caused by the middle-east unrest, others claim that it is because the speculators are pushing the price higher. Regardless of the reason oil prices are going up, the bottom line is gas prices are going up. The increase in gas prices will have a real impact on the economy, I wrote a similar story back in July 2007 called Price Gouging at the Pump at the time it was a concern that if gas prices stayed above $3 a gallon it would drive the country into a recession. At the time a lot of people claimed that the price of oil led to the high gas prices, but as we have seen during the past 2 years oil prices dropped all the way down to just over $30 a barrel. The gas prices did not drop much under $3
a gallon when in reality they should have dropped to under $2 a gallon. Instead of gas prices dropping what refineries were doing is stock piling the gas and increasing their profits. Now that oil is over $100 a barrel the price of gas has gone up to $3.50+ a gallon. There is still a surplus of gas in storage, as a matter of fact, the U.S. has so much excess gas refineries are exporting gas to other countries and it's still not reducing the excess.

Today the government is looking into releasing oil from the national reserve to stablize and possibly reduce the price of oil in hopes of reducing the price of gas. Let's face it, the current price of oil has nothing to do with th current price of gas. The oil storage tanks are full, the gas storage tanks are full. Releasing more oil to the market will not drop the price of gas. At this time the government has only 1 option, treat gas like a utility and put a price cap on it until the excess has been reduced to levels that would warrent a price increase. If the price of oil over the past year averaged about $70 a barrel then the price for a gallon of gas should be about $2 and that should be the cap. The president should list this as a matter of national security to keep the Republicans from stopping it as a favor to their friends in the oil and gas business, I do understand that polititions are given campaign contributions and in return they do
favors for the people or companies that gave them the money. The U.S. is one of the few countries that I know of where giving money to a politician for a favor is actually legal, most countries call this bribing but here it's called campaign contributions. As for the investors that bought gas and oil futures, too bad. It's about time that you gave some of your profits back to the country that made you millions over the past several years, call it an investment. The more money people have the more they will spend, if they are not spending their money on gas and food, they'll start to buy other things.

The absolute bottom line is, "There is no oil shortage, there is no shortage of gas." There is a shortage of jobs and that issue should be addressed and treated as a matter of national security. We are already seeing what happens when people don't have jobs and the price of food increases, our government really needs to make sure that doesn't happen here. But so far no one in Washington D.C. has a real grasp of what is going on or how to fix it while keeping their campaign contributions coming; or maybe they do know how to fix it but they can't because they have been bought.

Limiting a Child's television or computer time

I'm told that a child should only be allowed to watch 2 hours of television per day and the term television also includescomputer time. I can see some logic in this which makes my argument for getting Baby Dumpling a computer a little more difficult.

The story goes like this:

Baby Dumpling has learned, over the past year, how to navigate to her approved websites as well as navigate within those websites to find what she wants to do. We do limit the activities to educational things like spelling, counting, and so on. We let her go to PBSKIDS and NickJr for now. Her knowledge of how to use a computer has grown quite a bit during the past 6 months, so much in fact that she can use Google search to find PBSKIDS.Org when she wants to visit that site. Now when I'm using the computer to do my school work (I lost my job over a year ago and decided that I needed to return to school) she will ask me if she can use the computer. Usually she's really nice about asking. She will come up say, "Daddy are you done with your homework?" or "Daddy are done with your test?" and I ask why and she says she wants to use the computer. If I'm done I will let her use it or I'll ask her to wait until I'm done.  Most of the time it works out, but sometimes she feels that I'm using the computer more than her and she will insist that it is her turn, so we negotiate how long is her turn and when it will be my turn again.

My solution to this problem was to get Baby Dumpling her own computer, except computers are not really cheap and because we don't have a lot of money at this time I had to find a way to get a cheap computer that will handle what she will use it for.

At the college I'm attending the computer lab has a really great program. They get donated computers from local companies and people, fix or upgrade them and give them away to students that need them. It's a great program and the instructor expanded it to include the community. The way it works is; anyone who has a broken computer can bring it to the school and if it can be repaired the students repair it. If it can't be repaired the person is offered a free working pc, with the understanding that it does not get sold. When it's broken or no longer needed it gets returned to the school, that's why it's called a loaner. This is done free of charge, and if someone needs a computer but can't afford one all they need to do is go to the school and ask for one, and they get one for free.  Because a lot of people can't afford a computer right now there is usually a waiting list of a few weeks. It's really nice that someone is turning a learning situation into something that benefits the community.

So I explained my situation to the instructor and he said, "no problem, just put in the work order and we'll get one built for you." In a few weeks Baby Dumpling will have her own computer, which brings up a situation of how much time will she be allowed to use her computer in a day. My wife says no more than 2 hours. But if it's set up where she can get access to it whenever she wants then how to limit the time she can spend playing on the computer. One solution that has been discussed was placing the computer in a place that she cannot reach so she will have to ask for help to turn it on, but children have a way of working out problems or situations so they can get what they want. Some children build ladders out of chairs and boxes to reach the candy, and as most parents know children are very resourceful. They can make just about anything out of anything, usually they make something out of the most dangerous thing they can find, but they do try and keep trying until they succeed, get caught or get hurt. The final option to make sure we know when Baby Dumpling is using the computer is to turn the surge protector off when the computer is not in use and put the computer in a place that she currently can't reach. That should buy some time, a month or two, before we need to come up with a different plan.

We'll see if my plan works...

A Child's Memory

Kate moved in with us in October 2009, just before Baby Dumpling's second birthday. I saw her early one Sunday morning walking in our backyard, she looked like she hadn't eaten in a while so I put some food out. She quickly ate it then disappeared. Later that day she came back so I gave her more food. This went on for several days, then she started taking a few steps inside the house but quickly ran outside when she heard the Pug.

It didn't take long, maybe a few weeks, before she made herself at home and started to not be afraid of the Pug. Kate and the Pug became great friends.

Kate was sweet to my wife and Baby Dumpling. She would let Baby Dumpling pick her up and carry her around without complaining or scratching. I thought that was unusual because most cats that aren't use to someone or a child, won't want to be picked up, carried or have their tummy tickled.

As the months passed Kate became more and more comfortable. She knew how to come and go using the dog door. She would catch mice outside and bring them in to eat or and sometimes they got away. Basically Kate was a normal cat. One day she disappeared and we thought she had become someones dinner, but about 5 days later she reappeared at the back door. My wife let her in and gave her food. Kate slept for a very long time after that, not because she was sick or hurt, just because she was tired. After Kate's return things got back to normal, with the exception of me locking the dog door so she couldn't bring in any more mice. Kate didn't seem to mind that much, she seemed happy to stay in at night.  During her 5 day disappearance Baby Dumpling always remembered her during prayer time and was very excited that Kate came home.

Kate really did fit in with our family. It's just too bad that she started loosing the fear of the garage door and that loss of fear is why she is no longer with us.

To this day, several months after Kate's passing, Baby Dumpling still remembers her. Baby Dumpling remembers what she looked like and remembers that Kate was her cat and still includes her at prayer time. She still tells people that she has another cat called Kate, because to her Kate will always be her cat even if she had to say good bye. The old saying applies, "Gone but not forgotten."

Loss of a Family Pet

THIS POST AND THE FOLLOWING 2 POSTS TOOK PLACE OVER AN 8 DAY PERIOD. I POSTED THEM IN THE ORDER OF EVENTS:

This past weekend Baby Dumpling's cat, Kate, had an accident with the garage door. Although the sensors work to stop the door from closing, which I test regularly, it apparently wasn't good enough to prevent the accident.

When my wife and I arrived home Baby Dumpling called out to my wife, "mommy my cat is hurt." My wife ran over to investigate, she looked up at me with a horrified look then darted into the house screaming. When I got over there to look, knowing that what I will find would not be good, Baby Dumpling told me that Kate was hurt, then she petted the cat and said, "it's o.k. Kate you'll feel better."

We proceeded to take care of things while questioning how do we explain death to a two and half year old especially when it's her cat that died. My wife tried to tell Baby Dumpling that Kate is going away and we have to say goodbye. So they put flowers and at the time Baby Dumpling seemed to be dealing with it better than her parents. That night we didn't speak about it much just waited to see if there were going to be any questions, which there weren't.

Yesterday went fairly well, my wife and I both get a bad feeling every time we go near, open or close the garage door but we are recovering. Baby Dumpling again seemed to be doing better than her parents until prayer time last night. We usually say bless mommy, daddy, Baby Dumpling, Nini, the dog and Kate, keep everyone safe, bless all the animals in the world and take care of them and help all the people in the world to have food, Amen. Last night there was an interruption. Baby Dumpling wanted to know where Kate was and she demanded to see Kate. My wife and I tried to explain that the day before we had to say goodbye to Kate and we put flowers because she wasn't going to come back. We are trying very hard to handle this as to not put the fear if someone gets hurt they won't come back or if you sleep you'll disappear or die. I feel this topic needs to be handled delicately until Baby Dumpling gets old enough to understand this concept. As new parent I'm not too sure how to handle this situation, perhaps getting another cat would be the best thing to do, so the transference/healing process can occur. Maybe just letting it go and answer Baby Dumpling's questions the best I can about why she can't see Kate anymore might be a way. The biggest problem is Baby Dumpling has a very good memory, so her forgetting is not likely to happen anytime soon.

I was starting to wonder why I still call my blog Poppa2b because, I thought, I was a Poppa already but in this situation I realize that I'm not yet a Poppa more like a, "Poppa in training" and someday I'll be a Poppa.

Lying to Your Child

In the ongoing saga of dealing with Kate's passing I have found myself being somewhat of a politician. Today Baby Dumpling found a pet toy and said it belong to Kate and asked where Kate was. I replied that Kate was not here, implying that she was not in the house. That seemed to satisfy Baby Dumpling's question for the moment.

Tonight the question came up again and I found myself again playing politician. Just before bedtime prayer Baby Dumpling asked, "where is Kate?" I answered she's outside, hoping that would satisfy and end the questions, it did not. The next question was, "what is she doing?" I replied that she is playing.

Granted I did not tell Baby Dumpling the actual truth regarding the location or activity of Kate, but in my mind I didn't "technically" lie to her. First Kate was not in the house so she must be outside and second I don't know for absolute fact that animals don't have a soul. If cats have a soul then Kate would be in heaven playing and having a great time.(The story of Kate will be posted soon) I also don't feel that this is the best time to discuss who has a soul and who doesn't. I am not an expert on deciding who does or does not have a soul or who goes to heaven and who doesn't, that's not my place.

This brings up some interesting thoughts that can justify my answers to Baby Dumpling, because I am playing politician by splitting hairs and answering in terms that cannot be justified or denied. My argument is; why would humans be the only creatures on this earth to have souls? Since we don't know for actual fact that humans have souls, how can we say for absolute fact that animals don't have souls? The question of having or not having a soul remains a mystery, but if the bible is correct then the animals are taken to heaven, making my statement to Baby Dumpling correct, (I'm really stretching this one to justify my actions), I would be telling Baby Dumpling the truth and therefore not lying to her.

This is a delicate matter and I feel that it is important to handle it as if were fine crystal or china. At this age children are still developing both physically and mentally. The things we, as parents, say and do will stick with our children for life or it will cost a lot in psychological repair money.

Healing After a Loss

A few days ago Baby Dumpling decided that Kate had left her and moved in with someone else. This made her a little sad, maybe not as much as it bothered both my wife and I. We didn't want Baby Dumpling to think that Kate didn't like her, Kate loved Baby Dumpling. We didn't say anything to Baby Dumpling because we wanted to think about what is the right thing to say and figure out the right way to say it. As the day went on Baby Dumpling didn't mention it anymore so we didn't feel the need to address the issue.

That afternoon when Baby Dumpling woke from her nap, she recalled everything that happened to Kate. She remembered that Kate was seriously hurt in the back and she put flowers then said goodbye. Baby Dumpling did this on her own, we didn't encourage or force her to face reality. Although it was very sad and heartbreaking to watch Baby Dumpling come to the realization that Kate was gone, it was also a relief. Still the tears and sad face was very difficult to handle, but that is part of the healing process. After a little while Baby Dumpling decided that we needed to go buy another cat, an orange cat. I don't know where she got the idea about buying a cat let alone an orange one, but I told her that we'll look at the shelter to see if they have an orange cat that needs a home.

I didn't see anything online from the local shelter so I went to the Noah shelter webpage. They didn't appear to have an orange cat either, but I told Baby Dumpling that we will go the next day and try to find an orange cat. Later that night I decided to check the craig's list to see if there was an orange cat that someone was trying to find a home for. As luck would have it there was an orange kitten that was dumped then rescued by a very nice caring family. Actually there was a litter of kittens that were dumped, and this family rescued them, took the kittens to get their shots as well as have them fixed. They were able to find homes for all but 2 kittens. The owner of their building was insisting they find homes soon for the remaining kittens as quickly as possible.

After taking the drive north to the Noah shelter and having Baby Dumpling look at all the cats they had, she didn't find one that she was especially attached too. She was willing to take all of them because they needed a home and someone to take care of them, especially the white one with the broken ear. But her heart was set on an orange cat.

I contacted the family that had the orange cat and although they lived very far away, much further north than the Noah shelter, I decided to take the drive. When we arrived we discovered that the orange cat was actually a kitten, about 5 months, and he had a cream colored brother. At first we only took the orange cat, and the family gave us his shot record. When we got back to the van and got everyone in their seats my wife and I started talking about the orange kitten's brother. We didn't really want 2 kittens, but we didn't have the heart to split them up. I went back, which might have made this nice family think that I changed my mind and I was returning the orange kitten, but this was not the case. I told them that we don't have the heart to split the 2 brothers apart so we'll take them both. The family almost gave me their last cat carrier because I was unprepared for 2 kittens, they gave away their extra carrier with the first kitten that found a home, but I felt they had already done so much for these kittens we'll have to manage with the small carrier and the long drive home.

Once we made it home I discovered that I was still unprepared. It's been a very long time, before Baby Dumpling was born, since we had a cat that used a litter box, Kate went outside. So the litter box I had was cracked, I also didn't have kitten food. We managed, I used duct tape to fix the crack in the box, but a box with a plastic trash bag under that. I had canned food for the kittens to eat and if they didn't like that I was prepared to fix them some boiled chicken liver. I figured I just need to get through the night and visit Wal-mart the next day. The first night went fairly well. It turns out the cream kitten, C.C., is quite the cuddle bug and although the orange kitten, O.C., is a little more reserved he does like to be held and petted. Baby Dumpling is very excited about having O.C. and C.C., she collected some of the cat toys, and string from various places around the house so the kittens can have something to play with.

I suspect that the healing process is well underway for all of us. My wife and I also feel that bringing both kittens home was the right thing to do for us, the nice family, and the kittens.

The Passing of a Family Pet

This past weekend Baby Dumpling's cat, Kate, had an accident with the garage door. Although the sensors work to stop the door from closing, which I test regularly, it apparently wasn't good enough to prevent the accident.

When my wife and I arrived home Baby Dumpling called out to my wife, "mommy my cat is hurt." My wife ran over to investigate, she looked up at me with a horrified look then darted into the house screaming. When I got over there to look, knowing that what I will find would not be good, Baby Dumpling told me that Kate was hurt, then she petted the cat and said, "it's o.k. Kate you'll feel better."

We proceeded to take care of things while questioning how do we explain death to a two and half year old especially when it's her cat that died. My wife tried to tell Baby Dumpling that Kate is going away and we have to say goodbye. So they put flowers and at the time Baby Dumpling seemed to be dealing with it better than her parents. That night we didn't speak about it much just waited to see if there were going to be any questions, which there weren't.

Yesterday went fairly well, my wife and I both get a bad feeling every time we go near, open or close the garage door but we are recovering. Baby Dumpling again seemed to be doing better than her parents until prayer time last night. We usually say bless mommy, daddy, Baby Dumpling, Nini, the dog and Kate, keep everyone safe, bless all the animals in the world and take care of them and help all the people in the world to have food, Amen. Last night there was an interruption. Baby Dumpling wanted to know where Kate was and she demanded to see Kate. My wife and I tried to explain that the day before we had to say goodbye to Kate and we put flowers because she wasn't going to come back. We are trying very hard to handle this as to not put the fear if someone gets hurt they won't come back or if you sleep you'll disappear or die. I feel this topic needs to be handled delicately until Baby Dumpling gets old enough to understand this concept. As new parent I'm not too sure how to handle this situation, perhaps getting another cat would be the best thing to do, so the transference/healing process can occur. Maybe just letting it go and answer Baby Dumpling's questions the best I can about why she can't see Kate anymore might be a way. The biggest problem is Baby Dumpling has a very good memory, so her forgetting is not likely to happen anytime soon.

I was starting to wonder why I still call my blog Poppa2b because, I thought, I was a Poppa already but in this situation I realize that I'm not yet a Poppa more like a, "Poppa in training."

Inflation is here

Today I came across an add from Safeway for corn. Surprisingly Safeway is selling 2 ears of corn for $8.00.

Although I suspect this is a typo, but I wonder if this is a sign of things to come.

Today I got my internet bill from CrapCast (Comcast) and they decided to raise my rates. It's hard to believe that I have to pay $7.00 for a modem rental when this modem is 7 years old. Last month it was only $5.00. I think if I have to pay $7 for a modem rental then I should at least get a brand new modem or maybe faster more reliable internet service.

I know people who say that cable is faster than DSL, but the last place I lived I had DSL and it was much faster than the Crapcast I have now and I payed a lot less for it. It really surprises me that cable companies sign contracts with cities but there is never a clause in the contract regarding price for service or anything that resembles how much and how often the cable company can increase rates for services. In today's world cable, both Television and Internet, should be considered and classified as a utility and regulated as such. The price of cable television and internet increases at about 4 times the rate of inflation and the last time I checked there was a fear of deflation. That would mean that prices are the same or less than a year ago, but I seem to be paying more for my internet than a year ago, actually I'm paying 40% more on a used cable modem than I did last month. I suspect that either the cable companies are wanting more money for their CEO's or the government is completely wrong about their assessment on the economy.

Perhaps it's time to DUMP CRAPCAST (COMCAST) AND GO WITH THE NEW COMPANY IN TOWN or dump the current locale politicians and go with ones that will know how not to let companies rip off the people who live in their towns, cities, counties, states or country.

I say stop letting companies rip us off.

Children Grow So Fast

It has been just over 2 and a half years since Baby Dumpling was born and I still can't believe I'm a Poppa. Sometimes it just amazes me that this little person started out so tiny has become a force to be reckoned with. There seems to be a lot of negotiating when it comes to dealing with someone, who's just under 3. You need to negotiate everything from eating to watching movies, there is even negotiating for going to the potty.

Some might say, "you just tell the child what to do and they'll do it." I use to think like that until I was confronted with that face, you know the one, quivering lower lip, giant sad eyes filling up with tears... I have found it almost impossible to say no while looking at a face like that. Children sure do know how to get you feeling like an evil monster when they want something and you say no. They don't even need to make a sound, and you just cave in. I'm hoping that I will grow stronger and be able to resist the "face" before I'm confronted with the makeup, clothes that are too small, going to the mall with her friends and let's not forget the latest, coolest, fastest sports car on the market.

Like a lot of fathers of daughters, I have a feeling I will not be able to withstand that face, so I've been developing a plan. I'm starting to learn that I can defer a lot of the requests to my wife; and Baby Dumpling has also been learning that she can slightly change my wife's response when she reports back to me. An example of Baby Dumpling's learning is when it comes to asking for candy. I tell her to ask her mom, I've learned not to give candy without checking first, and Baby Dumpling will report back that mom said yes. When I ask how many, she replies 2 or 3, that's when I have to verify with my wife. Usually it turns out that my wife didn't specify how many pieces, just that Baby Dumpling can have candy. That's when the negotiation over how many pieces starts and it gets referred back to my wife.

I find myself negotiating just about everything. This morning Baby Dumpling made the request for ice-cream for breakfast, my natural response was, "what did mommy say?" Her response was, "mommy is sleeping." Luckily my wife woke and was able to take over the negotiating before I caved in, I would not have given her just ice cream, I would have put ice cream on waffle with strawberries, blueberries or chocolate syrup.

I think part of any class that teaches negotiating skills should include a section on negotiating with a 2-3 year old. I think it's included in some parenting classes, but I must have been absent the day they covered how a father negotiates and wins over his 2 and a half year old daughter. Perhaps, there could be a class called, "there's a way to not cave in when you look into the quivering lip, big sad eyes filling with tears, and not feel like an evil monster."