Using my fatherly instincts

I'm not a father just yet, but I have been using my fatherly instincts a lot recently to help take care of my 2-year-old nephew, Connor. And I must say, depending on what mood he's in, he can either be melt-your-heart cute or oh-my-God-he-got-a-knife-out-of-the-drawer scary.

Now you're probably saying to yourself, "He got a knife out of the drawer? They obviously weren't watching him closely enough."

The truth is that if you're saying that, you've never dealt with children for an extended period of time. In fact, watching a 2-year-old constantly would be about like baby-sitting a hyperactive penguin with a cocaine habit; they're absolutely impossible to take care of every second.

And trying to make a 2-year-old put a knife down without hurting himself -- or you -- is like negotiating a hostage situation. If I try simply running up to him to take the knife, he'll become mad and start flinging it everywhere.

"Connor, you cute thing, you," I'll say tenderly as I cautiously approach him while he stares blankly at me, "How about we play with something else? How about you slowly put that knife down, huh?"

But when he is melt-your-heart cute, he likes me to read the endless library of Elmo and Maisy books he has while he sits on my lap. Usually he gets tired of the book after about the second line, so he flips it to the end. Story time usually goes like this:

"Maisy can't find her teddy bear. Where could it be?" (Flips pages.) "Maisy can finally go to sleep. Good night Maisy! The end."

The first time I ever read these books to him, I wouldn't let him flip the pages to the end. Being a curious person, I had to know where the hell Maisy's bear was. And what was more puzzling was why she couldn't find it when she lived in a house the size of my pinky.

Reading the short summaries on the back of these books is always entertaining. While adult books may have something dramatic like, "Will the kidnapping of Jane's husband prevent her from falling in love with the murderous detective investigating the case?"

Connor's books, however, go more along the lines of "Maisy is getting ready to take a bath, but she can't find Panda. Will she be able to take a bath?"

It must be frustrating being a baby when you can't talk and everything you do, including getting mad at everyone, is cute. The other day he knocked everything off the bar in a raging fit and yelled "No!" to everyone as he pointed at them.

"Aw, ha-ha, look at him go!" we all said as Connor proceeded to give Elmo severe head trauma.

I don't even want to talk about diaper changing. I think I killed a small tree with the number of wipes I used on him to avoid any fecal matter getting on my hand.

Anyway, I'm going to go. It seems Connor is holding Maisy's teddy bear for ransom and will kill it with a ballpoint pen if he doesn't get lunch in five minutes.

Will Maisy's teddy bear survive?

Sam DeReign is a freshman at Southeast Missouri State University. Contact him at sdereign @semissourian.com.