Am I actually doing something right?

I really don’t know why it is what it is, but it is.

My son…Ankle Biter…is beginning to turn into a “too good to be true” type of kid when he’s with me. Sure, there’s the whole “he’s not talking yet” thing…but other than that, he doesn’t give me any problems or hassles. I mean, his version of a tantrum is to pout and curl up in a ball for a few minutes quietly.

“The terrible 2′s”? It didn’t really happen for me.

And now that he’s three, I’m fully expecting the “terrible 3′s” to take effect. But thus far, I don’t see that happening. In fact, he’s seemingly becoming more and more awesome with each passing week. Here’s what happened this past weekend…

I went to visit my parents on Saturday. Normally he’ll sleep for 15 minutes or so in the car on the way there (it’s a 50-minute trip) but he didn’t that day. While at mom and dad’s, he became a bit over-tired and antsy…but he was still well behaved. Sometimes kids can get crazy to handle when they’re over-tired…not Ankle Biter…not on this day. At one point he actually did something that made me stop and just soak it in for a minute. Y’see, there’s a picture of him and Rugrat together and a picture of me and Rugrat together from last year sitting on the ledge of my parents’ living room window. AB actually leaned on the ledge to look out the window, but paused to look at the pictures, too.

Look at this and tell me it’s not totally awesome?

Ankle Biter: 09/19/09

On the way home he fell asleep before we even got out of the town limits (i.e. about 10 minutes into the trip). I took my time getting home and he slept for about an hour. When we got home he stumbled out of the car and into the house. I looked at him and asked him if he was still tired. He nodded his head so I walked him down to his bedroom for another 40 minute nap.

Now, this may not seem odd to most…but he hasn’t been napping at the babysitter’s (or with The Ex, for that matter) in about three weeks. The last time he napped? Yep…when he was with me two weeks ago. In fact, the last time he had an hour-long nap at the babysitter’s he ended up being awake (and apparently a little monster) until almost 9pm that night…with his mom. But with me on Saturday night? The kid was amazing. We played…we changed into pajamas…we watched some Kung Fu Panda…and he had NO problem climbing into bed with a smile on his face by 7:40pm.

No problems.

He woke up around 7:05am on Sunday (he slept in until 7:20am the day before) and I was a little concerned about what we would do for the day. I initially wanted to go to the zoo but the wind was pretty cold and he was still enjoying the new Thomas the Tank Engine train set that my parents gave him for his birthday. So after a breakfast of waffles & strawberries, we settled in for the day.

This is where Ankle Biter became the coolest son EVER.

Around mid-morning I popped some popcorn for a snack. He settled in on the couch with me as we proceeded to watch SportsCenter. Now, I’m not one to normally watch sports when AB is around…normally we’re watching cartoons and such. But I wanted to “test the waters” and see if he would possibly be a sport fan. Needless to say: mission accomplished.

Watching sports w/ Ankle Biter: 09/20/09

So with his ESPN football jersey and sitting on the couch with dad, we watched SportsCenter before watching the NFL network’s morning coverage of the day’s games. Since I’m a massive NFL fan, my hope from DAY ONE of AB’s life on this earth would be to have a son that could hang out and watch sports with me. No…it’s not because I’m a huge sport guy or anything. I rarely watch hockey, don’t care too much for baseball, and haven’t really been into NASCAR for eight or nine years (I used to be a huge fan). But it’s one of the things my dad NEVER did with me. He wasn’t a sport fan at all (unless you’re a fan of curling) and I grew up watching sports alone in my room. It’s not a big deal or anything…there’s certainly no resentment. But it’s definitely something that I want to share with AB as a bonding experience.

Yes…he watched football ALL AFTERNOON with me. I had a potluck of things going on in three different rooms to make sure he didn’t get bored. In my bedroom was a Shrek marathon playing on the DVD player (I’ve got all three on one disc…it comes in handy). In the spare room (normally Rugrat’s room when she’s visiting) was his Thomas train set and some music I had playing in the background. In the living room was the bulk of his toys, the couch, NFL football, and me. He went to all three rooms all day and was just the best-behaved kid ever. Sometimes I’d go play with him in the Thomas room…sometimes I’d watch Shrek with him in my room…and then most of the time I’d play with him in the living room.

I made supper for us and we both sat on the couch watching the games. I really felt like a million bucks because he seemed genuinely interested in the game. Of course, he was also mimicking me and how I ate…which brought about a chuckle from me.

So when I took him back to his mom’s last night, I explained how awesome he was all weekend. She was concerned about his napping, but I told her that I had no issue at all getting him to sleep. She asked if he acted up at all over the weekend…I explained that other than not eating a lot for lunch (he ate really good at breakfast and dinner), he was the perfect son all weekend.

Which makes me wonder…am I doing something RIGHT here? Why does she seem to have problems in certain parenting areas but I don’t? Sometimes I worry about doing things wrong but apparently I’m not too shabby at this whole “dad” thing.

So yeah…it was a GOOD weekend.