I Bark With Great Enthusiasm

I bark with great enthusiasm and I have a ferocious meow. My cow moo is of extremely high quality and done with great commitment. And my snake Ssssssss'es would make even my childhood speech therapist proud. That's because I'm a Dad.  

A Dad's 200% effort towards any parent-child activity can result in behavior outrageous enough to rival similar behavior demonstrated (as witnessed by third parties) during his own college drinking days.  In my case, I'm sure that there were some late night and early morning barks, meows, and hisses, but they were most likely without as much clarity and conviction.  I can at least verify that I once participated in a moo'ing contest so embarrassing that even the winners were left feeling defeated.

If Daddy Spectator were a real magazine, I would probably get 96 points and a tip that "my dog barks are best paired with tickle fingers".  This type of confidence can only be demonstrated by one type of individual.

I am Tickle Dog.  Like many parents, I have found the secret to making my children squeal with laughter at the simple uttering of a word. Or in my case, a dog bark. Tickle Dog crawls on his aging hands and knees, barking like he's never barked before.  When he finds a little kid, Tickle Dog initiates a tickling, barking, and kissing frenzy.  But, Tickle Dog is easy to escape from.  He doesn't want his victims to kick him in the jaw again. Tickle Dog has a short learning curve. Besides, he has another little kid to find once he's done with the last one.

Recently, there have been requests for Tickle Dog and I happily oblige.  In mid-tickle, I often get a request for Tickle Cat at which time I lash out on my victims with a flurry of mad meows, tickles, and kisses.  This activity is good until Tickle Dog or Tickle Cat, tired and sore, falls down on the ground and does his best Sleeping Dog or Sleeping Cat imitation.  

A few days ago, I was Tickle Dog followed by Tickle Cat.  I then received requests, spaced apart by a few minutes, for Tickle Cow and Tickle Snake.  After enough hissing to make my numb tongue (which is not a typo but rather how it would have sounded if I tried to say it at the time), my son yelled "now do Tickle Parent!"

Tickle Parent?  I was stumped.  Here I was, a Tickle Parent in the flesh and a darn good one, but I stopped dead in my slither.  I thought to myself, "How do I-... But, I'm already a-...What does a-...". Isn't a Tickle Dog, by definition, a Tickle Parent? I guess it's not if there really is a dog out there that tickles little kids.  What would their Tickle Parent look like? I digress.

For a moment, I considered how well tickles and kisses would combine with firm parental statements such as "You will have a timeout if you don't take your pancakes off of the wall" or "We share the 'Yay'".  However, I decided that these conflicting messages could potentially cause lifelong issues.  A strong psychological association between discipline, pancakes, tickling, and kissing could result in some really awkward circumstances later in life.

So, after a long pause, I debuted as Tickle Parent.  I did what comes as naturally to a parent as a meow comes to a cat and a moo to a cow.

I stood up and, with great enthusiasm, yelled "I Love You! I Love You!" and attacked with tickles and kisses. It was the proud role of Tickle Parent that kept me from collapsing into a Sleeping Parent position.  Instead, after a very long stretch of playing Tickle Parent, I was able to invoke Sleeping Kids.