What the @%$^#, you did what?

Every parent will have them. There is no use in running, or pretending, or trying to hide. The moment when you look at your lovely little creature and wonder if they were spawned vs. birthed. How could he/she have done... Oh yes, consider that a warning.

Keep your composure and try to figure out what actually happened. It often does not always happen as it would appear (most likely it will be worse than you imagined). Counting to 10 (for yourself) is very helpful too. Keep calm and talk through the situation. There are really very few situations where you have to pull out the he-man-ogre tone and growl. That time will come but save it for effect when it is truly needed. There are basics to communication that we should visit along with how to walk through the situation.

• Keep calm. 
• The moment that you lose your cool the tears will start taking this down another path
• If tears start prior - show some comfort but have a hesitant distance as you investigate.
• Ask "what happened?"
• Decipher as needed
• Ask questions...(put the badger away... they are kids)
• Ask "why did this happen?"
• There is usually a good reason in a kids mind for the actions he/she performed
• Just go along with the story so you can get the beginning, middle and end
• Coach the child on the right thing to do.
• Take the child down the path showing him or her where it went wrong
• Explain why (in your nice voice) this is the correct decision or action
• Have them repeat it back to you.
• Repeating the what, where, where and correction back to you is key (in the adult world this is called 360 Communication or The Communication Cycle)
• This shows that the child retained the information

Now, so you can see how this doesn't work... and how you will most likely react when the moment arrises for the first time - read below.

 There was a period of about three days when I could swear that our kids were raised by natives, or wolves or anything that was not of my home. I went in to the bathroom for a normal relief after a long day. I am not the read a book kind of guy but was taking my time... Anyways, I noticed something on the shower curtain. "What is that?" I asked myself. Upon closer identification it was a booty wipe... someone had used the shower curtain as a piece of toilet paper. My wife and I decided that we should put up wool shower curtains (that would solve it if the culprit were to strike again).

Judging by the height we determined that it was the little one who was just learning to potty on her own. Maybe we were out of toilet paper on the roller and that was the next logical thing. We talked to her using the steps above, and felt good about the outcome. Well, that is until the next time. So when we discovered the potty-graffiti-artist had swiped again - we confronted the munchkin with a little more aggressiveness to show we were not pleased with how this was going down. While confronting her my oldest child dropped to the ground and started crying... My oldest... Now here is the part not to do... "What the hell is wrong with you?" After the initial loss of control - I regrouped and repeated the steps above.

Since those days - I have witnessed two boys using our tub as a bar-style trough urinal, a water bottle filled... and in case you were wondering the liquid waste from our body does not change the buoyancy of legos. They still do not float.

I am happy to report that the booty artist has changed professions and our lego men are not deep at sea. Good times.

God Bless - Joe

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