Parenting the Right Way

Vampire Attack

"Papa, will you tell Paul to not draw on the walls?"

"Paul, please don't draw on the walls. It would make a mess that would take while to clean up," Katakuri replied.

"See, told you! Shishishi!" and Luffy zoomed away again while his father was making dinner. He smiled, and wondered how Dragon would react when they went over to their home the next day to meet him and his family. He knew Dragon was strict with his children to a fault, but had never beat them.

Personally, Katakuri would never want a father so focused on the future of his kids. He wanted Luffy to enjoy his childhood and not worry about his future. Though he did have an unattainable dream: to be a zoo keeper for dinosaurs. Katakuri never told him it was impossible, not wanting to crush the dream he'd eventually grow out of.

When Luffy came back for dinner, he had a messy star drawn on his hand. "Did you draw on your hand? Or was it Paul?"

"I did it!" Luffy said, and thrust a permanent pen in the air. "I found this cool marker!" Katakuri had no idea how he found that pen. He asked for it, and then told Luffy he couldn't use the pens that looked like this. "What? Why not?"

"It's a permanent marker. Meaning it's very hard to clean up afterwards," he answered honestly, cutting up his chicken breast into bite sized pieces. Polite and fairly clean as he was, he would stab the fork into the food and then eat it off of the fork in one bit chunk. But Luffy said he wouldn't do it again. "That's very nice of you to do, thank you."

The boy beamed at being praised, and ate his chicken and mashed potatoes. He drank his lemon water. Katakuri was glad he liked the food he made and didn't seem very picky. Well, he didn't like soup very much, but there was plenty of other food besides soup, so it was fine to cut that out of their diets.

That night, Luffy insisted on sleeping in only his undies and pullup. But when Katakuri went in to wake him the next morning, some time in the night he'd put clothes on, the shirt inside out and backwards, his sleep shorts also backwards. "Did you get cold last night?" Luffy cocked his head. "You went to bed without many clothes, but woke up with clothes on," he pointed out.

"Oh yeah! I thought I peed but then I didn't and I got cold so I put clothes on," Luffy explained, eating his yogurt and granola for breakfast.

"Impressive. Doing that in the dark is amazing. You're very talented." Luffy was very happy with the praise again. Praising children often for little things was a good thing to do as it helped build self-confidence. "When we go to the Fusha's home, you have to be on your best behavior, okay?"

"Mmhmm!"

"Dragon looks like a grumpy grump, too. But he won't be mean to you or anything. He has a little boy, too, so hopefully you'll both get along," Katakuri explained. He was glad Luffy didn't see him as a "grumpy grump" anymore. Luffy promised he'd be a good boy, and Katakuri knew he'd do his best, even if it didn't end up being enough.

Luffy dressed in a shirt with a monkey on it, and some shorts with his flip flops. He also had a bag with his toys, in case Coby wanted to play. Katakuri didn't know how Dragon would react with Luffy being very friendly with Coby. He knew the boy didn't have many friends. While Katakuri knew Dragon was strict, he had rarely seen him with his children. He focused on work while Makino took care of the kids.

When they drove to the house, Jingle Bells playing on the stereo quietly, Luffy wondered why the doors were paper. "It's an old fashioned house. All houses used to be like that once. Though it gets a little cold during the night."

"Oh," Luffy said in interest. He was holding onto Katakuri's pant leg, too short to reach to hold his hand while they walked. He knocked on the front door, Luffy looking around the fairly boring yard in interest. Their backyard and front yard had a lot of flowers because Luffy liked them, being colorful.