"First we play little pig, then we play kick our butt, then we play juggling!"

          You want to see what your children really are like? No screen time. Ours started as a necessity, but has become one of my favorite times of day. Since the boys have trouble sleeping, we struggled for a long time finding a routine that would facilitate better sleep than what they usually managed.
We had the privilege of discussing it with a woman whose expertise is autism and behaviors specific to autism. She gave us a sleep protocol to go through each night, but also informed us that the TV and computer screens were some of the most harmful things they could be subjected to in terms of sleep management. The body produces melatonin when the sun goes down in a natural setting, and doesn’t produce it as long as your eyes are subjected to bright lights. By watching TV and computer screens, we’re essentially telling our brains that it isn’t bed time yet, so our bodies don’t bother producing the chemical that helps us to fall asleep.

“Little pig little pig let me in!”

“Not by the hair on my chinny-chin-chin!”

“Then I’ll come down the chimney!”

“No, no, no. It’s, ‘Then I’ll huff-‘”

“Oh, oh yeah, yeah. ‘Then I’ll huff, and I’ll puff, and I’ll blow your house over, down, broken HIYA!”

          And the ninja fight ensues. Wrestling and physical violence is just part of our everyday interaction with one another here in the Tate household. I know we have three little boys and it’s pretty well expected, but it is an essential part of our lives. It really got started back when things were at their worst. Even when the boys would not look into our eyes they would get in the floor with me while we beat one another with pillows. They couldn’t talk, but they could do a running drop kick to the kidneys like a pro. I think we wrestled in the floor together nearly every day for two years. To be honest with you it sometimes started because they were screaming and it was driving me nuts so I’d throw a pillow at one of them out of mock frustration (but a little bit of real frustration) and then the war was on. Hannah and I made the classic mistake of buying a brand new couch when our kids were infants so it hasn’t fared well over the years, but the pillows are perfect for launching across the living room at the knees of a retreating little monster. There’s an art to hitting a little boy with a thrown pillow. You have to hit them in the head so that the pillow flips over them and lands on the ground providing a cushioned landing. Its great how there’s no loyalty among brothers when it comes to wrestle time. They will grab whoever is closest and push them into my reach to avoid the deadly assassin hands of a ninja on his knees. The tickle monster wreaks havoc at least once a day in our house. Hannah and I are blessed to have the most ticklish little kids in the world. I love tickling them. I love tickling Hannah too, but she’s a big baby about it so I have to take it out on the boys, but I don’t think the boys would really complain.

When Hannah and I got married we talked and planned on waiting 4 or 5 years before having children. Caleb was born 1 week after our first anniversary. The twins were born 15 months later. Hannah was 21 and I was 22 and we had three little boys under 2 years old. I used to tell people that if we ever figured out what was causing all these kids we were putting a stop to that immediately. Regardless, I struggled a little with feeling like the formative days of our marriage were being stolen by a bunch of little blonde haired blue eyed parasites. Years later though, I’m grateful I was 23 and 24 when I spent hours at a time in the floor wrestling. I’m not an old man now, but I know that I hurt in ways I didn’t just a few short years ago. Hannah and I will be 39 when Caleb is old enough to graduate High School, so even though it was tough back then, I am so grateful now that we are young enough to enjoy this part of our children’s lives. I’m also grateful when someone else comes around for them to beat up on though because it just gets exhausting sometimes. One guy’s kidneys can only take so much.