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When I was in my early 20s, not all that long ago, here’s how I imagined myself as a father: I’ll be super laid back. In our home there will be no heavy-handedness, no severity, no excessive punishment or anything like that. If my kids want to do something, they can do it. In my mind, this wasn’t a negligent approach but a way to let them be themselves. I’ll spend a lot of time with them, I thought, and by letting them make their own choices, I’ll help them discover their true identities. I won’t make the mistakes of so many other parents. I can do better. No stern lectures or moralizing from this father. No getting mad about what my kids do.

Then we had L. and all that illusion disappeared — quickly. It didn’t take long to figure out that my “let kids do whatever they like” philosophy of parenting wouldn’t work in the real world. Imagine it:

“Hey, L.’s eating broken glass and goose crap again. Cool.”

“L. doesn’t want to go in her car seat. Let’s just let her sit on your lap again, C.”

“There goes L., clambering down the curb onto the street. Good luck, love!”

This, of course, isn’t good parenting. It’s insanity. So much for the lenient dad of my imagination. As for my plan to never get angry — that went out the window right away, too.

It’s very disconcerting to feel angry at your kid for the first time. There’s your vulnerable little daughter, howling and screaming in her crib, and there’s nothing you can do to soothe her. You pick her up, sway her and sing to her gently, and she just yells louder. You can handle it for a bit, but then you feel a wave of frustration and anger rise in your chest. Your muscles tense, your teeth grind. All your tenderness is gone. Be quiet already. STOP.

Then you realize the darkness of your thoughts and emotions and wonder: what’s happening to me?

In pre-natal class, when you first heard the warnings about never shaking a baby, you thought, who would even think of shaking a baby? But now, with your patience gone, that warning makes perfect sense. We’re telling you not to shake a baby because there are times when you’re going to be angry — regardless of how loving and patient you think you are. You think you’ve got it all under control? Think again. You’re not as strong as you think you are. You need to find a healthy way to deal with your anger.

So when all else fails — and it does fail, often — I go to C., exasperated, and say: “I need you to take her. I can’t do this right now.” C. does the same with me. And somehow, we make it through. It ain’t perfect, but it works.

Parenthood, it seems, is a cosmic joke on people like me who think they’ve got it all figured out, who think they can do everything better than all the other parents out there. It’s so easy to sit back and judge other parents — including our own — and think, I would never be like THAT with my kid. And then you find yourself doing all that stuff you said you’d never do, being the way you said you’d never be. And you realize that you’re just like all the other parents in the world who are just trying to make it through, trying to love and build something that lasts. You’re no different.

Parenthood is God saying, “Hey asshole — think you’re hot stuff? Try this.”

This new documentary “about what it means to be an involved, contemporary American father” looks very cool — and this involved, contemporary Canadian father is going to try and track it down.

(Hat tip to Stay at Home Dad PDX. I found out about the film through his blog.)

As a parent, TV kind of scares me. Not because it’s intrinsically bad or anything like that, but because it would be so easy to just plop L. in front of the TV and let it work its magic for long periods of time. It can be tempting.

Right now we’re very lucky — that method wouldn’t work, even if we tried. L. gets bored with TV. If we’re watching a show (ie. Dan for Mayor, which is hilarious to a municipal politics junkie like myself), she’ll look at it for a minute and then lose interest, digging around in her toybox for books. Sometimes she’ll sit there for almost an hour flipping those board pages back and forth, reading in her own way.

But there’s one TV show L. absolutely loves right now: Colargol, a Polish stop motion animation show from the ’60s and ’70s that follows the adventures of a curious bear who lives in the forest. L. totally loses her indifference to TV when she sees that little bear dancing around and getting into trouble. She grins and laughs and flaps her arms excitedly, the way toddlers do.

Both C. and I love to discover new books, films and music, and it’s exciting to see L. experience that joy of discovery, too.

I don’t remember ever seeing the show as a kid — apparently it aired on TVOntario as “Jeremy the Bear” into the ’80s — but I enjoy watching YouTube episodes with L. Colargol has kind of a Wallace and Gromitesque aesthetic — very lovingly created. While most of the clips online are in Polish, it’s easy enough to follow the stories without understanding what’s being said.

Here’s a clip of little Colargol making breakfast for his parents.

Tuesday afternoon, I locked myself and L. out of the house.

My plan was to drive downtown to MEC and buy L. a bike helmet so she can safely ride in our bicycle chariot. But with the keys locked in the house, driving was no longer an option. The only way to get back into the house was to take the C-Train to C.’s work and pick up her keys. So that’s what I decided to do.

We headed towards the C-Train station, L. atop my shoulders. A neighbour was out watering her grass. When I told her that I’d locked us out, she asked if we needed anything. Water? Juice? Cookies? Anything? No, I told her, we should be fine, but thanks. (I had a bag with all the food and water we needed.)

We walked a few more blocks, and stopped to talk to Youssef at Tazza, the local Mediterranean restaurant. He offered us a ride to C.’s work — but I had to decline, since we didn’t have a car seat for L. We went on our way, thankful for the generosity we’d been offered.

At the train station, I realized that MEC is just a few blocks away from the train line. Instead of spending all afternoon trying to get back into the house, I thought, why don’t we just take the train to MEC? We ditched the plan to get C.’s keys and headed downtown instead.

Most people who use public transit avoid making eye contact with other transit riders. I’m the same way when I’m on the bus or train by myself. But when you’re holding a 1-year-old girl, that kind of indifferent behaviour becomes impossible. People look and smile and wave and ask for L.’s name. All of this happened as we rode the train downtown. Suddenly I found myself having conversations with people I would never have spoken with had I been by myself.

We got off the train, I shouldered L. and we headed down 8th Street S.W. to MEC, where we picked out a bike helmet for her (pink with cupcakes, of course). Thirsty and hungry, we stopped at Bumpy’s Café for a muffin and smoothie.

As we sat at the table eating our snack together, I realized that locking us out of the house was the best thing I could have done that afternoon. If I hadn’t locked us out, I’d have driven to MEC, paid $2 for parking, bought the helmet and headed straight back home. Traffic would likely have been frustrating. I’d probably have cursed a few drivers along the way. Instead, thanks to our unexpected inconvenience, we had positive interactions with other commuters, caused no emissions (the C-Train is wind powered) and saw people and things we would have missed if we drove.

The river. The grinning old lady with her walker. The kid pounding his hands against the C-Train doors. The kind panhandler under the train bridge who waved at L. The sidewalk. The sky.

L. is making me live differently and see the world with new eyes.