Rage Comics

I often post very short stories about Jane on Facebook, and was recently told be a friend that I should be making a comic strip with these Jane stories, which could then be published in a newspaper. I pointed out the my friend that, "Only old people read the newspaper these days," taking care to imply that I was definitely not an old person. 


Realizing however, that the nature of people looking for entertainment telling a story in a short-and-sweet, 4-panel arrangement has not changed, I asked myself, where are the comics these days? The Internet, of course. One of the forms of short-and-sweet, 4-panel comics that conveys common simple emotions, is the popular Internet meme called the rage comic. It's a simple drag-and-drop format with stock faces and expressions that's easy to make.


So, armed with only my edgy sense of humor and keen eye for the wry, I set about creating rage comics based on the often hilarious and inventive things Jane does.


Here are some of my comics. They are all pretty self-explanatory.

Raising Jane: Eating Crayons 
(recounting a story from when Jane was about 9 mo old)

Raising Jane: Not Eating Candy, just FYI

Raising Jane: Self-reliance

Raising Jane: Y U NO SLEEP?

More stories of Jane coming soon!

Green Eggs and Brown Pond Water

Jane gets green eggs for breakfast. No ham today, alas.

I use food coloring to make food more interesting and fun for my three-year-old. She not an especially picky eater, but she does like when things are interesting and out of the ordinary.


This morning she wanted green eggs. If I had it already pureed and frozen, I could easily have used spinach or kale, but as it was, I pulled out the food coloring.


Occasionally, when I think she needs to drink more water, I'll color her water as an enticement to hydrate. She always like to watch the drop go in, the water molecules swirling about in an otherwise perfectly still glass of water, creating something that looks like smoke from a censor diffusing in the air. Jane always watches closely, then as the swirling strands of color branch out she squeals, "Ooo!! Scary!!" 

Then one day she asked for a drop of red and a drop of green food coloring. Naturally it came out pond-scum brown. Now she wants brown pond water. Imagine how this looks when I have company and she asks for brown pond water... and I say, "Of course, Honey."

Jane Sends Herself to Her Room

We brought home ice cream tonight. Steve was pretty excited about it, as was Jane. When we arrived home, she played for a bit, then ran into the kitchen announcing that she wanted some rock candy.

"Daddy! Daddy! Jane - candy rock!" she cried excitedly, as if she'd already been sugared up.

"Wait, Jane. Daddy has ice cream. Do you want ice cream or candy rock?" Steve asked Jane.

"Candy rock! Candy rock!" Jane squealed.

"Um... Mommy?" Steve called to me from the kitchen. "Does Jane really want candy rock or ice cream?" He knew there would be a meltdown if he gave her one and then she cried for the other later on.

I came into the kitchen. "Jane, are you sure you want candy rock? Daddy has ice cream. You usually love ice cream. You only get one. Ice cream? Or candy rock?" I asked her careful to drawl out the words "ice cream."

"Ummm... ice cream! Ice cream!" she jumped up and down.

"I thought you'd want ice cream," I told her as Steve scooped her treat into the little bowl.

About fifteen minutes later, her little ice cream treat gone and forgotten about, she heard Steve in the kitchen and remembered the rock candy. "Jane want candy rock! Jane - candy rock!" she said excitedly as she ran into the kitchen to plead her case to Steve.

"Jane, remember, you could only have one. This is why we really thought about it before..." he told her calmly.

"Jane - candy rock!" she insisted.

At this point, Steve did what any sensible father would do in this situation. He called for backup. "Um... Mommy?"

I entered the kitchen where the standoff was taking place.

"What's up?" I asked.

"Well, Jane had ice cream, and she knew she could only have one treat, but now she wants a candy rock. I told her--" Steve was cut short by Jane's interjection.

"Jane -- candy rock NOW!" she demanded, and stomped her foot for emphasis.

I straightened up and blinked slowly, and looked at her in silence, my face showing mild surprise. 

Jane met my gaze, then lowered her eyes and hung her head. She went to leave the kitchen, knowing that the consequence for raising your voice and stomping your foot has consistently been that you go to your room. If you choose to be unsociable, you are removed from society, as it were. But as she moved to go, she took my hand in hers and murmured, "Sorry, Mom."

We took a few steps hand in hand, but instead of taking her to her room, I brought her to the living room, where I sat on the end of the coffee table and put her on my lap. 

We sat in silence for a moment, then I quietly thanked her.This was this first time I remember her spinning up and out of control, recognizing that she was out of line, and then choosing to step back from the edge and apologizing. It was a remarkable moment, made all the more remarkable by the fact that Jane only turns three at the end of October.

We sat quietly, then one of us (I can't remember whether it was her or me) did a silly thing, poking or tickling the other. We were soon giggling together, then Jane suggested we play with her model cars, which we did. Jane was pleasant the rest of the evening, and didn't mention the candy rocks again.

Jane Chooses to Be My Little Girl

Jane pretends to nap with the most patient cat on the planet. 

"Meow! Meow!" Jane called to me as I sat at the table sipping a mid-day coffee. When you have a toddler, you find yourself drinking mid-afternoon coffees more often than you probably should.
"Are you a kitty now?" I asked her.
"Jane - kitty," she informed me, and began scratching at the cat's scratching post. It was mildly annoying, but nothing I couldn't ignore. 
"Jane - scratch."
"Ah, you're scratching at the post like the kitty. Is that it?"
"Mm-hmm. [cue toddler falsetto] Meow!" She came over and indicated she wanted to sit in my lap. I pulled her up to me and sat her in my lap. Then she did the unexpected, and licked my arm.
"Did you just lick my arm?" I asked her with a furrowed brow. 
"Jane - kitty!" she repeated, and licked me again.
I jerked my arm away and said, "Jane! Don't lick me. We don't do that."
She frowned at me, letting me know she was using her angry eyes.
"Jane, you don't need to use your angry eyes. We don't lick people. You know that." 
She looked at me like I simply didn't get it and sighed. She then repeated, "Jane - kitty. Meow! Meow!"
Ah. I got it. She was a cat.
This made me stop for a moment. The meowing was almost endearing, and the scratching at the post was just in between cute and irritating, but licking was square in the middle of annoying. If I were to send her to her room for it, she'd simply find some other time to do it, like when we're at church, when I can't send her to her room. 
"Jane," I told her calmly, "if you really want to be a kitty, then you should be doing only kitty things. So, let's go look at Kitty and she what kinds of things she does."
Jane brightened at this idea, and followed me into my bedroom where the cat lay sleeping at the foot of my bed.
"So, looks like Kitty sleeps a lot..." Just then the cat roused, stretched, and started to jump off the bed. "And she stretches, so you'll need to start stretching more... If you really want to be a kitty, you'll need to choose one of the beds and sleep at the foot of it... or you can sleep in the garage. Kitty sleeps out there too. And you won't be able to watch TV, because Kitty never does that. Oh, and no crafts either. Kitties don't do crafts."

Kitty's bed in the garage. Kitty's real name is Chairman M'ow.

Jane was starting to take all of this in as she followed me from the bedroom back to the kitchen. We stood for a brief moment in silence, while Jane thought about all the things she would have to do as a kitty, and the things she could be doing as a  little girl. 
"Well, I'm going to have some watermelon. I'd ask if you want some too, but since you're a kitty, you don't eat watermelon. I really wish you'd be my little girl, though, so you could have watermelon with me."
"Jane - little girl. Jane watermelon too," she told me.
"You're my little girl again?" I asked with mock surprise.
"Yes! Jane - little girl," she said happily.
"Oh I'm so glad you chose to be my little girl instead of being a kitty. I like having you as my little girl!" I told her, scooping her up into my arms in a big hug as she giggled.


It's been two days and Jane hasn't licked me or scratched at the post since. 


Battle won. No shots fired. 

The Bite Box: Dealing with a Biting Child

I try to come up with creative solutions to problems that arise with Jane. One of the issues we had was biting. 

Who knows why one kid bites another kid? But more importantly, how do you get the little savage to stop? As a parent, you are absolutely mortified that your little cherub would bite another child, and you're almost encouraged to hear that other parents have wrestled with the same problem. But I never seemed to hear any good solutions, just got shrugs and "Oh, she'll grow out of it."

All these Children are your Friends. Take good Care of your Friends.

Somewhere around Christmas, in an effort to curb the occasional biting impulse, I started referring to all children as "Jane's friends." Any time we went to the playground, we were going to see "Jane's friends" that she hadn't met yet. I would remind her that we take care of our friends, we protect our friends, and we never ever bite our friends. 

It seemed to be working, and I was incredibly relieved and happy that she was past the biting. But then... Fat Tuesday came.

Fateful Day

On Fat Tuesday, I took Jane to the My Kids Clubhouse to play. She loves that place. We made a Mardi Gras mask together and she got some beads that she was really proud of. She was playing so nicely, that I almost thought it was some other kid that suddenly started crying in the distance on top of the slide. But no. Down came Jane with tears in her eyes and a long face, and right behind her was a beautiful Japanese girl who was about four, crying with equal force.

I asked Jane what happened.

"Hit," she said between sobs.

"She hit you?" I asked, almost puzzled.

"No. Jane hit." Great. Jane hit the girl. Well, at least she's honest.

"What happened then?" I asked her. 

"Bite," Jane tells me matter-of-factly.

No. No, no no. Please tell me no.

"Jane, did you bite that little girl?"

"Yes." 

Just then the girl's mother pushes her sleeve up to revel a bite mark that rivals any dental impression I've ever seen. I am mortified. Seeing the teeth marks in her arm, the little girl howls in pain and indignation. I cringe, and take Jane by the hand to the front desk.

"Um, what do you do when one child bites another?" I ask, holding Jane in my arms.

"Oh, we do not tolerate biting. Is your girl OK?" the lady asks me, concerned and sympathetic.

"Oh, my kid's fine. She was the biter. But are we, like, banished or anything?"

The woman blinks at me. I don't think she's ever had the parent of the offending child approach her first. "Um, well, she can't bite other kids..." she stammers and seems at a loss as to what to tell me.

"Well," I say to the woman as much as for Jane to hear, "Jane made a very bad choice biting that girl. We have to leave now, and we won't be coming back for the rest of the week. It's too bad, because Jane really has fun here. But Jane made that choice. "

I turn Jane towards me and tell her, "Jane, you'll have to give up your mask," and I start to remove the Mardi Gras mask from her face as she starts to whimper. "And the beads." 

"No. Jane's beads!" she protests.

"Jane, I'm sorry. You chose to bite that girl, and now you don't get to keep those things." 

Jane is unsure whether to be sad or angry, but gives up the beads without too much fuss. Now for the hard part. Still carrying Jane, I go to the offended little girl still weeping in her mother's arms. Her mother has been soothing her in Japanese. 

I tell the mother, "Please tell her this and make sure she understands," I turn to the little girl, "Jane knows it's wrong to bite. I'm taking her home now and she will not get to come back all week. She had to give up her mask - she's not allowed to keep it. And she had to give up the beads too - she can't have those either..." 

As I'm telling her this, the little Japanese girl stops crying and Jane starts to cry. I realize that in my making amends to the little girl, her healing begins with a little justice. Jane, on the other hand, is starting to feel the consequences of her own actions. I tell Jane to tell the girl she's sorry, and Jane signs "I'm sorry" with her fist making circles over her heart.

I apologize profusely to the mother, and again to the girl, and Jane and I go home. Once home, I decide more instruction and evidence of consequences is needed. 

But how can Jane have a concrete reminder that biting is bad, and what can I do to make the consequences stronger than the urge to bite? This is when I got the idea for the Bite Box.

The Bite Box

I took a large clear plastic box with a lid, and drilled holes on both ends so that it might be sealed with zip ties. I told Jane that the next time she bit anyone, her favorite toy and the toy she was playing with would go in the box. It only took a couple days before she lost her temper and bit me.

I have worked very hard to be like the Judge in the courtroom who looks down at the delinquent and says, "Young man, I am very sorry to have to do this, but you have brought this sentence upon yourself. I hereby sentence you to blah blah blah..." The kid almost thinks the Judge wishes he didn't have to be so harsh, and is reminded that he is there entirely by his own actions. I really try to give Jane consequences, so that she chooses to do the right thing not because she's afraid of making me angry, but because the right thing is so much easier and more pleasant in the long run. The consequences of her actions are often punishment enough, and my anger only detracts from the lesson.

So, after I got over the surprise and pain of Jane biting me, I very matter-of-factly said, "Jane you know what happens when you bite. I'm really sorry you made that choice."

She giggled, not knowing what to expect. 

I sighed in sympathy, and told her, "You have to give up your trains for a few days."

She was confused. 

Then I took the Bite Box into her room and started loading it up with her trains. She began to protest and cry. I told her I was sorry, but that she had made the choice to bite, and when we bite, the things we love go away.

I set the Bite Box at the entrance to the house where Jane would see it every day, any time she passed by. 

I made a little face on the box with big teeth, so Jane would be reminded why the toys were in the box and locked up.

Once the three days were over, Jane got to help cut off the zip ties.

We only had to use the bite box three or four times. Thankfully within a few weeks, Jane stopped biting. 

I think the box might now become the "Backtalk Box." More on how that works out later.