My Wisdom to the Spud

My daughter growled at the dogs. She hasn’t spoken a word yet, but she knows how to growl. I was so proud, I almost cried.

There are certain things that every father tries to pass on to his offspring. Some fathers pass on words of wisdom such as “The early bird gets the worm”. Some other fathers pass on things like a watch that they smuggled out of a POW camp. Some fathers pass on a money and a love of hookers.

I, being superdad, have taught my daughter how to growl.

As some of you know, it has come to light to me that my 1 year old daughter has gone feral. She is living in the jungle book and being raised by a bear and some wolves. She delights when she sees our dogs and can’t wait to throw food at them. It has gotten to the point that when she is in her highchair they will calmly sit underneath her, waiting for that slice of heaven that is the chicken nugget. They will even eat broccoli, a first, to show allegiance to her so that she will reward them with greater morsels.

I have never seen such well behaved dogs. With me, they always slobber to I give in and throw what left over spaghetti against the wall so that they will chase it. I will push the cat out of her hiding spot so that they will chase her and leave me alone. My boxer slobbers like Niagara Falls and if it wasn’t getting all over my legs, would be very impressive.

As she is being raised in a wild pack, one day I thought that it would be beneficial that she know how to express her displeasure. This is what I have passed on to my daughter.

We practiced during re-runs of Star Trek, which is the other thing that I have passed on to her. Although she can’t say it, she understands the Prime Directive better than any starship captain.

Each day when I get home we turn on the good old Tivo, friend to us all, and play whatever episode happened to be on. This particular episode happened to be about some Klingons taking over a mining colony. Not a good thing. One of the Klingons growled, very tough sounding.

This got my daughter’s attention and she looked at the screen. This is weird because she never looks at the TV which just reinforces the idea to me that the Milkman must not watch a lot of TV. I watch a ton of it. For those that missed that, that was joke stating that the Milkman is the true father of my daughter. Of course, the general rule is that if I have to explain a joke, it’s not very funny. I should delete this.

So this gave me an idea. Let’s start with the basics. Let’s just go ahead and forget about “Dada” and focus on more beginner level communication.

I took my daughter by the shoulders, looked her in the eye, and growled.

She laughed her little head off. She couldn’t get enough of it. Ok, we are good to go. She is entertained by this, let’s see if she can mimic.

I flexed my muscle and did it again. She stopped, looked at me real hard, then growled! It was a peanut of a little growl, but a growl nonetheless. My little girl is becoming powerful and should usurp my power by next January.

We did this for the next hour as Captain Jonathon Archer rescued the mining colony. Each time a Klingon got on screen, I would point and growl. Then she would growl. I growl, she growl, I growl, she growl. I would flex and growl, she would flex and growl.

We have practiced this everyday for the last month. I’m usually home alone with my girl for about 2 hours before Hossmom gets home. Which is good because she approves neither of Star Trek or growling although she did find this quite funny.

30 days of this. 30 days of Star Trek and guttural communication. My daughter is going to Harvard, at which point she will growl at her roommates.

During this time, we also play with the dogs. They are great with her and love getting in some good playtime. We imagine that they are the beasts on Rigal 7 and we must stop their evil plan. My shirt is off and I am waiting for Hossmom to come home. I am still the captain of this ship.

However, the dogs can get a little over excited when playing Romulans and knocked her down in their fever. She looked up, gave her best Clint Eastwood stare, and growled. Loud.

The dogs stopped and the boxer cocked his head. “What the hell” I’m sure he was thinking. Then he went over and licked her face, domination achieved. She laughed.

She then looked at me with the same stare. Maybe we should just watch some more Star Trek next time?