One Kid? You’re a Dad. Two Kids Makes a Parent

Having your first kid is stressful, scary as hell, and drop dead amazing all at once. But, should you be fortunate to share the responsibilities with a spouse, you have the ability to tag team all the screams, cries, vomit, and piss on the walls. You have one responsibility and you do everything you can to take care of that little bugger.

Having another kid, on the other hand, evens out the teams. Now you need to worry about KID A (god, I love Radiohead) and KID B. You have to worry about meeting each of their needs. And you have to worry about how they both interact with you and your wife, and how they interact with each other.

A smart dude once told me this: "When you have one kid, you are a dad. But when you have 2 or more, you become a parent." That's one smart chap. You will be constantly forced to deal with situations where the impact can be felt both in the front seat and the back seat. Dealing with discipline, rewards, and rules can be tricky to navigate. On one hand, you need to treat each kid as individuals. On the other hand, this isn't a Montessori school, this is your house, your family and your rules. Here are a few tips:

CONSISTENCY
There's that word again. Consistency is key in basically anything that pertains to parenting. Both in this usage, it is important to stay consistent between kids. If you tell your daughter, "No throwing balls in the house", then you should tell your son the same thing. Failure to do so will result in both kids breaking the rules.

{mosnooad}STICK WITH WHAT WORKS
If something worked for your first kid, use it again for the second. It will be second nature to you and your wife, and you won't mess up a good thing. For instance: let's say  your first born did really well with store brand jars of baby food. Don't get all crunchy the second time around and make your own food. Think of it this way: when you are planning Madden and that screen pass to LT is getting you 20 yard pickups every time, you keep on running that play to win the game. Who cares if LT gets 500+ yards rushing and 8 TDs. It works and you are kicking your buddy's ass.

BUT DON'T BE AFRAID TO ADAPT
In Madden, you don't run a different play until it stops working. You throw in a screen pass to mix things up a bit. If your second kid hates store baby food, then you can try making your own.

DON'T PUNISH KID B FOR KID A's MISTAKES
ONe of the easiest things to do, is to punish both kids equally. Regardless of who did it. THat use to work all the time on my soccer team growing up. If someone missed a ball or ran a drill wrong, we all had to do wind sprints. That caused all of us on the team to rally together to do better as a group. But what we really wanted to do was beat the crap out of the kid who always screwed up. We didn't do that of course because we didn't want to get benched. Well, your kids aren't vying for playing time. Punish Kid B for something Kid A did, and you might have a brawl in your living room. Try to nab the culprit and punish accordingly.

DON'T PUNISH KID B FOR KID A's ALLERGIES
Food allergies are a fact of life but that doesn't mean you need to deprive both kids. Education is key in this case. My son has a milk allergy. But we in no way take milk products away from my daughter in the process. My daughter knows about the allergy, and protects him when we are out and about. Depriving her of Mac and Cheese just because her brother can't have it will cause resentment. Now if the allergies are more serious or are airborne allergies, of course greater sacrifices will need to be made.

ALONE TIME
Nothing works better than setting some one-on-one time for each kid. Special time alone with your kid will remind them that they can exist individually and they can sometimes also get attention individually. My daughter and I use saturday mornings to go together to Starbucks and then run some errands. Those are some of my favorite times, hearing her talk about her week (she's only 4) over a latte for me and a strawberry frappacino for her.

Good luck noodads.