Good Cap, Bad Cop

Here's a kid. One nine-year-old kid. She's excited because she's going to the Children's Museum of Houston. Once inside, the catalyst of being in the museum will produce a chemical reaction in her tiny little head resulting in an explosion of excitement causing endorphins to course through her body, releasing adrenaline. Much like popping a hydrogen balloon. With one child, it's somewhat manageable. With five, it's not as manageable.

I recently experienced taking my sister, three cousins and Delma's cousin to the Children's Museum. They're all between the ages of six and ten. That's five small kids going wild in a museum that was already packed because all of the kids in Houston are out of school this time of year. If I had gone alone, I would have lost them all. Thankfully, the kid to adult ratio was 1:1.

Still though, shit was crazy, y'all. They were all yelling my name and trying to get me to play with them and shooting me with imaginary guns and baking me fake pizzas. I consider myself to be pretty good with kids. I'm silly and patient and I'm not condescending. I talk to them like I'd talk to anyone. They like being around me and I think because I act like a kid, we all have fun together. The problem is that they tend to view me as an over-sized peer and not as an authority figure.

In the past year, four of my cousins have had kids. I've been visiting them over the break and all of the babies are adorable. I've been thinking about when I'll have kids of my own and I'm kinda getting worried. Not that I won't take care of them, but the fact that I'll be a giant pushover. I don't want my kids to walk all over me. I want to be respected. Feared, even. I want to be the dad that demands your attention. If I say "No more cereal," the spoons drop.

But at the same time, I want to have fun with my kids. I want to be able to go to a playground and play on the monkey bars with them. I want to be both the good cop and the bad cop, but it's not feasible. For the good cop/bad cop dynamic to work, there need to be two cops. Not one. And I'm sure Delma won't want to be the bad cop. Being the bad cop sucks because then your kids get scared of you and they go crying into the good cop's lap when the bad cop is mad at them.

Decisions, decisions, decisions.

I'm going to name my first child Diplodocus.