THE NINE THINGS EVERY FATHER OF YOUNG CHILDREN KNOWS

Now that you are a mother or father for the first time or maybe you are one of those who have repeated, surely you have not thought about everything you have learned about children, your child to be exact, that baby who is already a Time came into your lives turning everything upside down. Surely you are clear that there are many things that you have learned in this time, some of them are even likely that now you see it in a very different way than you did before being a father and others have been confirming what your friends had has been saying

I have made a small compilation of some of them, the nine things every father of young children knows.

As indicated by the health authorities, 12 hours of sleep are necessary. For parents, of course.

And those 12 hours will be for normal humans, because you need at least 23 to be able to keep up with some children who with only four hours of sleep are able to spend the morning testing the breaking point of the sofa springs, turn the room upside down (literally) and go down to the park to jump from tree to tree.

Your children will put any object in their mouths, except the vegetable.

Cars, balls of different sizes, fluff, biscuits, dog food, anything that is within their reach is likely to be tasted, except for those green things that parents insist on putting them on the plate.

You have to put more things in your backpack to spend an afternoon in the park than on a weekend for you.

Remember when they told you, are we going to the beach this weekend? You put a pair of pants, a shirt, the towel, a couple more things and the car.

Now it is to decide that you go down to the park with the children and almost that you need a personal assistant or a carrier of those who carry those who climb Everest, because he puts the exchange bag (diapers, cream and wipes), the snack bag ( water, cookies, the banana that is going to spend the next ten days tumbling in the bag, the aspitos, other cookies (chocolate and last resort in case everything else fails or you have to bribe the little one to leave the park and you can go home), a body in case the pee comes out, a t-shirt for the same and since we are, a pants a set of socks and shoes.

Depending on the weather we can add umbrellas, raincoats, water boots and if it is cold, a hat, scarf and mittens, etc.

That only in relation to the basics for the care of your child and only one child, multiply by the number of children you take to the park.

Regarding what your child considers necessary to take to the park we have: several dinosaurs, trucks, cars, tractors and other vehicles with a number between one and many wheels, balls of various sizes, colors and textures, shovels, rakes and buckets For the sand, dolls like to celebrate three birthdays with their corresponding dressings. Anyway, when you have everything packaged and ready, it's almost late.

The outermost layer of your child's skin has a scientific name, "dirt."

That brown so strange, that it seems darker in some areas than in others is nothing more than a generous layer of dirt that acts as a sunscreen and protective layer. This layer is not alone, at those ages there is another even more exterior that is the layer of mud and waste of doubtful origin that are adhering to your child's clothes within five minutes of putting it on. Luckily, the soap has been invented, which at least works with my children's skin, with the stains on my clothes I have to resort to stronger things like the sandpaper of number 7.

A bathroom is only a submerged playground

Any parent with children at this age knows that bathing your children in five minutes, just as you did months ago, is an impossible mission. The bathtub of my house is already an extension of the playground of my children's room and the other day I found a cream pot inside the shower that has been there for several years. Don't ask me how it came in, I just know that it took me horrors to get it out of there.

There is a perfect time for your child to stop using the diaper, but the only one who knows is him.

Everyone tells you, "when your child is ready, he will surely stop using the diaper." There is only one problem, the only one who knows when he is ready is your son and as a rule they are a tad reluctant to tell.

The silence is scary

Silence in a house where there are one or more children under 10 years old, can only mean two things:
- You are lucky and you are sleeping.
- Something they are up to and you certainly won't like it. That is why there is nothing that scares parents more than silence, except perhaps an incoming call from school or nursery school.

You will never find the other mitt.

Winter comes and you buy the pack "we are going to the Arctic" consisting of a hat that at the beginning is not only going to cover his head but until he is three years old he will reach him by the ankles. A scarf, and that always remind me of the Doctor Who of my childhood and gloves or mittens, that I still do not understand that gloves are sold for children who still do not know how to wear them, have any of the gloves manufacturers ever tried put those fingers in gloves seven sizes larger? Please stop making baby gloves that we spend mid afternoon until each finger is in place.

And if it was not enough to walk avoiding that they spend the day sucking the mittens it turns out that at the minimum that you realize one of the hands of your son has managed, without knowing how, to free himself from the three sailor knots that you had made to the mitten, but there is his hand, all flushed. And the mitten? Probably three more stores behind. But if you have achieved the difficult challenge of arriving with the pair of gloves at home, I will tell you that you have the challenge of finding the second mitten the next day that you want to put them on your child. Do not worry if you do not find it, probably this party with the three socks that have also disappeared.