I consider myself still relatively new to parenting. My daughter, Relaneve, is four years old. My son, Rhys, is four months. I have learned a few things, though. I'm not a complete neophyte. For example, I used to think that as your children grew, that you would teach them. Train them, so to speak. I mean, when they're really young, you're not so much communicating with them as you are making examples for them, right?

Wrong.

If I've learned anything about parenting, it's that the children train you, not the other way around. Case in point. I went to the Betty Brin Children's Museum last weekend with my wife and two kids. Relaneve was having a grand time playing on this massive slide/jungle gym/fort thingy. she'd run up to the top, slide down in the innards of this contraption such that we couldn't see her, and then exit from the bottom chute, exaltant. Then she'd go after it again, determined to beat the slide one more time.

Meanwhile, Joanne and I were sitting, keeping Rhys occupied. And to do so I was wagging my wedding ring by a ribbon to make something shiny and fun to look at. And then I thought: hey, I have this fancy Blackberry. Why don't I take a video as long as I'm here. So, I did, and then I started babbling to him, much as I do at home, to get him to make some fun sounds. Training him, right? But then it occurred to me that I'd had the relationship wrong the whole time.

Case in point. The video evidence. Yes, that's me babbling away like an utter fool completely oblivious to whoever might be watching. Sometimes I tell myself that I'm just being a good parent, ignoring the noise and focusing on my child and his needs. But in the back of my head, I know the truth…