Adopting Fatherhood

I'm not a big fan of the phrase terrible twos, mostly because I don't find much terrible about a two year-old. Sure, potty training can be gross and a small person with an incredibly hard skull head-butting you because she still hasn't figured out how to manage her emotions isn't fun. But regardless of how rough things can seem, two year-olds have an amazing ability to do something so cute that you forget just how frustrating they were just a few minutes ago. Tonight was a great example. Six nights out of seven, The Kid marches right up to the sink to brush her teeth. If you haven't already put the toothpaste on her toothbrush, she'll wrestle you for control of the toothpaste, but that's about as contentious as it gets. Unless you caught her on the right day, and today was that day. She refused to start brushing her teeth, instead she decided that her toothbrush was a chew toy and started chomping on it. No amount of cajoling could get her to start b...

Most of the parenting advice I get is to enjoy The Kid at this age as much as possible, and the reasoning behind that advice is either that teenagers are hellions (duh!) or the regret of a parent who frittered away their time with their two-year old. Rarely does someone give advice that deviates from that, until they figure out we adopted The Kid. When that happens, people either insist on telling you all about their sister-in-law's best friend's first cousin who adopted a couple of kids, or they start to give you nonsensical advice. My favorite, or least-favorite in this context, piece of advice was to heed the advice of all adoptive parents because they have a similar experience to ours. That's BS. This statement is a direct reflection on my outlook on the world. I wouldn't take career advice from someone with a job just because they have a job, or marriage advice from some random married person just because they are married, so why would I take parenting ad...