He Called His Shot(s)

The boy called his shot!  It’s a big deal.  I don’t think I ever called my shot… and actually delivered.  Besides that, it was a brave call.  He said there’d be six and there were.  This isn’t a story about a cocky four-year-old that goes around shooting his mouth off.  It’s about a kid that knows himself inside and out.

*****

The kids behaved exceptionally well this past week so we decided to reward them with something a little out of the ordinary.  As per usual, they had no clue to where we headed off to Monday evening, but they didn’t think it would be fun when the Prius finally stopped in front of The Bon Ton.  If I didn’t know our actual destination I would’ve been bummed, too.

From ladies’ shoes, through Juniors, to fragrances, our daughter lamented about a stomachache or headache or toe ache.  My ears were turned off, so I’m not sure which it was.  She kept this up until we saw a boy twenty-five feet in the air.  We were at a bungee trampoline.

“I feel better,” shot out of our miraculously cured six-year-old’s mouth.

Both kids took advantage of this generous opportunity to get an edge on the competition for the U.S. freestyle ski team in the 2026 winter games in Miami.  Visions of the next Speedy Peterson danced through my head as they flipped and bounced and bounced and flipped endlessly.  Now they just need to learn to ski.

I got a little jealous watching them, but my big lunch tipped the scale too much to do the adult version.  My wife could’ve gone, but chose to keep her feet on the ground.  She must be afraid… or smart.

Dinner at Dave & Buster’s followed.  The extreme activity must’ve gotten things moving around in the boy’s stomach because right before my Boss Chicken Club arrived he rubbed his belly and stated that he needed to poop.  I looked at my wife with chagrin and downed my Corona Light.  She smiled and batted her baby blues.  We have an unwritten pact; the boy’s mine and the girl’s hers.

I reluctantly left the table and searched for the little boy’s room.  After passing by everything from ski-ball to frogger we saw the red neon ‘restrooms’ sign.  Just another 150 yards and we’d be in defecation heaven.

The toilet was just past the seventy-two urinals and it was clean… sort of.  I did the usual scrub down of the seat and had the pleasure of soaking my fingers in something wet under the seat and it wasn’t Palmolive.  This was an example of my carelessness at its best, now I’d probably have to wash my hands.

As per orders from my stomach I advised the boy that we were short on time and that this cut into our gaming and eating.  He pondered the situation and came up with a solution.

“I’ll just do six,” he said.

Guilt and panic set in.  “Don’t hurry yourself,” I said.  “Make sure you finish.”

“I’ll do six,” he said, “and I’ll hurry.”

The boy explained to me that the first one always hurts a little and groaned his way through it.

“That’s one.”

Another groan.  “That’s two.”

Groan again.  “That’s number three.”

He continued with this process until he said, “That’s six.”

“I’m done, Daddy.”

“Are you sure?” I asked.  “Make sure you’re done.”

“I said I’m done,” he said.

We wiped up and I counted the neatly dispensed nuggets.  There were six.  The little guy backed up his words with actions.  I felt like Babe Ruth’s dad at that moment, except a little more proud.  The Babe only called one shot; my son called six.

We made it back to the table with plenty of time left to devour our grub and shoot aliens and crash cars.

As a parent there are many times in life that your kids make you proud, like an “A” in math, a Nobel prize, or a really hot girlfriend, but this one takes the (urinal) cake.  That’s my boy!!!

… or Get Off the Pot

I admire my son’s dedication to not do what he doesn’t want to do.  There’s no hesitation on his part to commit fully to a mildly unpleasant task to avoid something else.

On many days the boy wakes up too early for my liking.  On my non-working mornings I’m a devoted sleeper and a four-year-old will not alter that.  Stop laughing, I mean it.  When he comes into my room and asks me, “Is it morning time?” I answer, “No,” put him back in his bed and like a good press secretary I tell him no questions.  I’m snoozing again before my greasy hair slides onto my ice-cold Firmapedic pillow.  End of story… not quite.

On weekdays my wife rises before the sun, so she’s awake and making herself even more beautiful in the powder room when the boy gets out of bed again.  He heads right to her because he knows I’ll be of no help to his needs and she’s much easier on his squinted little baby-grays.  During his face-to-face he informs her that he has to go poopie.  Despite her doubt of his sincerity and honesty she dutifully succumbs to his wishes and lets him hop on the throne.  Ignoring his request isn’t an option because both she and I have witnessed the end result of denying bathroom privileges to a child whom I thought had cried wolf.  It’s not a mistake you make more than once.

She gets back to the business of getting ready for another day in the rat race while he sits there mostly quietly.  Every couple of minutes he asks, “Is it morning time?”  She answers, “No,” and he continues to sit and wait.

Eventually I stroll out of the bedroom at a more reasonable hour.  He asks again, “Is it morning time, Mommy?”

This time she says, “Yes, it is.”

“I’m done,” he says and peels himself off of the toilet seat.

His wobbly little legs deliver him to the sink to wash his hands and he looks at me.  “It’s morning time, Daddy.”

My wife peeks in the bowl to discover that it’s… empty. This product of my procreation would rather sit on the pot for forty-five minutes than lay in bed for that amount of time.  The little guy had the foresight to crap where he sleeps a long time ago just to set this up.  Diabolical!  Hopefully he’ll someday use his over-sized brain for good or better yet, my gain.   

 

copyright Linus Mann 2009

Pubic Speaking

At a gathering of 1^st graders and Kindergarteners, one girl’s story stood out a little more than the others.  Actually, it stood out way more than the others.  That little girl is my six-year-old daughter.

The shorter female in my life is in a younger version of the group that hocks cookies for what seems like fifty weeks a year.  Her group doesn’t participate in that drive, yet.  They sell more valuable things like ornaments or disposable teapots. 

At the first meeting of the new school year the girls were asked to say a little something about themselves.  This is a great stepping-stone for their future public speaking engagements as flight attendants and auto show models.

When it was my silver-tongued angel’s turn to speak she didn’t miss a beat.  Since the womb she’s been an extrovert, so this was right up her alley.

It went something like this, “Hello, my name is ____, I’m in first grade and my teacher’s name is ______.  My brother likes to show me his penis.”

I wasn’t a witness to this, but one of the group leaders relayed it to me when I showed up at the end of the meeting.  She started out by saying that my daughter created a YouTube moment.  Then her face became beet red as she quoted my little future Dr. Ruth.  During the speech this leader had to excuse herself from the circle because she didn’t want the kids to see her laughing and peeing herself.  That’s when the other leader finished the story.

I guess my beautiful princess wasn’t done speaking.  Let’s just say that she likes to be helpful.  She’s considerate that way.

She finished with, “For those of you that don’t know what a penis is…” The leader that kept it together steered the conversation somewhere else before the anatomy lesson was concluded.

Before you condemn the parenting skills being applied at my household you should know the back-story.  At my house penis is not a bad word, not that it’s a good word, it’s just a potty word.  There is no shame attached to it, just the idea that it shouldn’t be thrown around willy-nilly.  That morning’s events must have led my daughter to forget that potty words are for the bathroom, or at the most, our home.  When I received a smooch good-bye from my wife who was leaving for work, my daughter yelled downstairs that her brother showed her his penis.  It wasn’t as bad as it sounds.  He just happened to escape from his bedroom half way through his dressing for the day.  He ran around sans pants.  He’s four, and my son,what do you expect?  As you know, the last thing kids see sticks in their mind, even if it’s their brother’s penis.

The whole incident seems to have blown over quickly, but we’ll see at the next meeting.  Maybe I’ll sneak in early to see whether my daughter’s gagged or being filmed for that next big viral video.

Who’s In Bed With My Wife?

Fate tested me and I’m not sure if I passed.

Last night a screaming Mexican delayed my highly anticipated arrival in the boodwah.  I’m talking about enchiladas, not Hervé Villechaize *.  I won’t get into the details about how I spent my time, but it took a while and it cost me.  

After washing my hands, brushing my teeth and scraping my feet I ventured down the hallway to Shangri-la.  As I moved closer I could tell something was amiss.  The light from the TV didn’t peek out from under the door of the darkened hallway.  This could only mean one thing: my wife fell asleep or the satellite was down.  Either way, my entertainment for the evening was finished.

I quietly stepped on the squeaky floorboards making sure to hit everyone in its sweet spot hoping not to wake up the dog.  I reached out for the door handle and felt… air.  It was gone and so was the door.  My head rattled from side to side.  Something didn’t compute.  Was the door open?  Is this my house?  Is that freaking Mexican knocking at my back door, again?  The answers came to me quickly: yes; yes; and not yet.  I clumsily reached out into the void and found the door to be at an angle that confirmed my suspicions.  It was open.  I knew it.

I remained still for a moment to take in my zero visibility.  After about ten minutes I closed the door and stumbled toward the bed.  I feared for my toes because a laundry basket was in the midst somewhere in the room.  I’ve encountered its kind many times before and knew of the carnage that can result from one of my piggies entangling itself in the plastic netting.

I made it to the bed eventually.  The telltale sign being the mattress brushing against my thigh.  I made it!  It felt good to know that I can navigate so well in my dwelling.  Utter darkness was no match for me.  The following information is only being revealed because it is necessary for the reader to know.  I sleep on the outside of the bed.  Therefore, by default, my wife sleeps on the inside.

I reached out to make sure the covers were out of the way for me to crawl into bed and my world changed.  I touched a hand.  A hand very different from my wife’s.  It was a different size and not as hairy**.    The hand grasped mine and I froze.  I wanted to shout or run or cry, but instead I said, “What’s going on in here?”  There was silence in the room.  It seemed as though the infiltrator feared revealing its identity.  Then the words floated through the air like the mist from Niagara Falls on a breezy day; drenching me in a not completely unpleasant way.  “Hi, Daddy.”

To many of you this might be a regular occurrence, but it’s a first for my wife and I in our almost six years of parenting.  Our son just turned four and decided it was time to share our bed.  WTF was he thinking?  Well, I’ll tell you.  As I carried him back to HIS room he said, “When I get big I’m going to sleep with Mommy and Daddy.”  In my uneducated psychological analysis I’ve concluded that he turned four and became a “big” kid and Mommy and Daddy are big and they sleep in the same bed, so he should too.  It’s either that or some sort of Oedipus Complex.  For sanity sake, I’ll go with the former.

The events that took place last night made me realize that some things in life shouldn’t be taken for granted.  Things like alone time with your spouse and night-lights.  I just hope that I nipped this nocturnal invasion stuff in the bud.  I’d hate to see what would have happened if I wasn’t delayed by the screaming Mexican.

 

Copyright Linus Mann 2009 

 

*I know he wasn’t Mexican, but I just smile thinking about the little bastard.  It’s not my fault that I spent my adolescence in the late seventies and crap like Fantasy Island was shoved down my throat via Saturday night television.

**I’m kidding snookie-pie; it was close to your size.

Preschooler Faux Pas

Fitting in can be difficult for many children, but so far my daughter seems to blend just fine.  Her way of blending isn’t in the traditional sense, such as doing whatever the leader does, partially because she’s often the leader, but by being similar enough to the other kids to not stand out all the time.  But a  startling new revelation might just knock my little angel into the loner club because kids can and will be cruel… if taught properly. 

She brought her problem to the forefront by being honest and being herself, which are sometimes a no-no in the preschooler-eat-preschooler world.  I guess she hasn’t caught on yet how important it is to follow the crowd in life if you want to be comfortable and boring, like her daddy.   

Here’s the problem: she doesn’t like goldfish.  Can you believe it?  She doesn’t like goldfish.  I’m not talking about the kind your great-grandfather swallowed in college, I mean the edible ones, you know, the dusty freaking crackers that every four-year-old loves.  She doesn’t even like the rainbow ones and that’s her favorite color.  To put this in context, imagine a twenty-something not liking Red Bull or Barack Obama or a forty-something not liking Starbucks or U2.  This is a big deal!

The taunting hasn’t started yet, that I know of, but I’m trying to prepare myself.  What am I is she going to do if she’s not in the kiddy in-crowd? 

I wish her well.  I’ll have She’ll have to stand tall and take the heat like a man big girl.  I hope it’s not too late for her to ride this one out by not thinking for herself and start copying her friends like she’s supposed to.  That’s the only way she’ll be able to just be one of the crowd, like her daddy. 

Godspeed young beauty!

copyright Linus Mann 2008

Learning My ABW’s

One great thing about being a parent is the chance to be a witness to a child’s mental development.  The physical part’s pretty cool, too, but I’m hoping my fat gene doesn’t ever kick in for them.  That would just be another thing to blame on me when my kids’ psyches are raked through the coals during therapy in young adulthood.  For the record, my fat genes didn’t show their puffy face until I was about twenty-two; it’s amazing what a positive effect drinking and not exercising can have on one’s life.

As I was saying about mental development, my daughter’s skills and abilities have grown astronomically this year.  I’d like to give credit to her teachers at preschool for these amazing advancements, but I won’t, because it’s probably just a coincidence that this has happened since she’s gone there.  I know that I’m the catalyst that triggered her brilliance to come to the forefront.  I can’t back this statement up with facts, but take my word, I just know it to be true.  How could it not be?

With my son’s advancement, I think it’s my wife’s doing, because I have to blame someone.  I don’t mean to infer that he’s not doing well, because he is… in his own way.  This week he loves letters, not the paper kind with threats of retribution on them that arrive in envelopes once a week; the kind that make up those futile words.  Actually, he loves a letter: W.  I don’t know why, but his whole world’s about “W”.  “W” this, “W” that.  I’m sick of the freaking thing.  It’s not even in his name, first, last, or middle.  I tried getting him to appreciate all the letters by subjecting him to my singing the alphabet song in F-flat, but that proved to be futile.  He tunefully sang back at me, “ABW KLW RWS WOP XYZ W”.  What’s a parent to do?

The bright side of this is that he’s progressed, because last week his favorite letter was 3.

Copyright Linus Mann 2008

The Return of… Words

Wow, it seems like yesterday that I last posted, that or 106 yesterdays.  Well, I’m back and I’m ready to start filling your heads with thoughtful anecdotes about my family and my life in general.  Okay, I’m back and I’m ready to spout my views, spill my guts and make you weep.  Okay, okay, here’s the truth: I’m back and I’m going to write about anything that I find interesting whether it bores you to tears, tickles your fancy, or just makes you want to cry or laugh or shake your head or pull your hair…

Since I’ve been away for a while, I’ll try to catch you up on my life.  This is your last chance to look away before I start droning on, so don’t say I didn’t warn you if you pass out or fall in love (with my writing).

The kids have both changed dramatically since my last post.  My daughter has become an emotional roller coaster that knows exactly what she wants out of life and is not afraid to go out and take it, whether it’s hers or someone else’s.  This can be a little troublesome if the item in question is expensive or hard to conceal, but assertiveness is very important in today’s child-eat-child world, so I can deal with it. 

My son’s goals are very similar to his big sister’s.  In fact, he wants exactly what she wants out of life, but only while she possesses it.  This is a bit more of a hassle for me than my daughter’s issues because I care if someone takes her stuff, but I’m learning how to work with my daughter to appease the boy.  We throw out some red herrings and the boy is as happy as Heather Mills is this week, and like the former Mrs. McCartney, it keeps him occupied for a little while until there’s something else to be coveted.  Luckily for us that just might be a plastic frog or a drumstick, as opposed to song royalties or castles.

As for my beautiful wife, she’s just as wonderful as before and still tolerates me, usually.  She’s a great mother and hardly scolds me about my lousy parenting skills unless they are life threatening, which isn’t very often, you know, once, maybe twice a week.

My dog’s just as loyal as always and still holds a higher standing in the house than me, but I can deal with that.  Well, I have to deal with it because what’s the alternative, dog stew?  I’m kidding; I prefer chops.  Does anyone have any golden retriever recipes?  I’m kidding again; I really do love my dog as much as the rest of my family.  Okay, not as much as the rest of the family, but almost as much.  Kind of how the Baldwin’s feel about Stephen, but a little more.

As for me, I put my writing on hiatus to pursue an important goal: becoming a mime.  I was quite successful, actually too successful; I was stuck in that freaking imaginary box and couldn’t get out for days.  This kind of stripped me of my passion to be the next Marcel Marceau, but I did lose ten pounds.

The last paragraph was total B.S., but I do plan on making this site a regular thing again.  Check back sooner than 106 days (early July), because I might get on a roll, or at least a tailspin.  Huh?

copyright Linus Mann 2008

Urine Trouble

Today, I experienced something for free that I heard some people pay good money for.  Not me, just some people and maybe not good money.  Let’s just say it has something to do with the words “shower” and “golden”, but not necessarily in that order.

Before you get your panties in a bunch and judge me, let me explain myself.  It might be as gross as you think, but probably not as seedy.  I mean, it’s not like I enjoyed it… much.

A typical day took place before this, you know: cereal for breakfast with the kids; watch Sesame Street; kick the dog; and give the kids a bath.  The end of bath-time proved to be my downfall.  While drying my son off outside the tub something just didn’t feel right.  A warm sensation spread across my thigh and something caught my attention peripherally.  It was a yellow spritz of liquid traveling through the air with no concern of where or whom it hit.  My slug-like reaction time helped soak the throw rug and myself before I could plug the stream with the towel.

I swear the boy just laughed when I informed him of his offense.  And when I told him that it was gross he mockingly made a face and said “Arrh” a couple times.  I don’t think he comprehended the utter disgust I felt at that moment even when I punished him by placing him back in the tub to be washed again.  It probably didn’t help that he loves being in the tub and that I really wasn’t utterly disgusted, maybe not even mildly disgusted, but he doesn’t need to know that.

Now that the moment’s passed I’ve had a few moments to ponder what took place today.  My son PEED on me.  My son PEED on me and LAUGHED about it.  Now that I got that off my chest, er, I mean, leg, we can all get back to our lives again.  I mean, it was only a little pee, well maybe not a little, but it was only pee.  Like I said, some people pay for this kind of thing.  Not me though…   

Decisions To Live By

Not many things in life are as easy as being a parent.  I mean kids these days practically raise themselves.  Because my children really have it so together, I try to stay in the background as much as possible unless they need my help with something small, like: eating, drinking, dressing, or defecating.

Occasionally they do need guidance because they are only four and two and I try to expel my astuteness as succinctly as possible.  It sounds easier than it actually is because I can really drag out an explanation if I’m in my chair of wisdom.  That particular chair’s located at a friend’s house where I’ve been known to enjoy a few cocktails, and my kids are mostly at my house so they usually aren’t put through that arduous assault on their listening devices, aka ears.  Today was one of those times that a reasonable adult was needed to point my little girl in the right direction and fortunately my wife was the one that was home.  Our little angel wants a tattoo.  Yes, a freaking tattoo.  A freaking tattoo on her freaking back.

It really was a good thing that I wasn’t the one home because for a moment I thought that it’d be cool to have the only preschooler, that I know of, with a tattoo.  Her juvenile choice of ink brought me back to earth so I didn’t even try to persuade my wife.  She wants candy corn on her shoulder.  I mean, let’s be real here, that’s such a time-sensitive piece of body art.  It’d just look kind of stupid in April.  Besides, the girl’s four-years-old and everyone knows that bad life choices should wait until your at least ten or eleven.

I’m glad that I could be there for my non-branded little girl, again.  She’s very smart but my infinite guidance is always waiting in the wings if she needs it.  Lucky girl!

No School For You

Something just didn’t seem right when we arrived at my daughter’s school today.  There was a different vibe to the place and an odd odor floated about.  The owner of the school walked outside to speak with the mothers and me while we were swapping recipes.  This was unusual in itself on two counts.  Number one: the teacher usually greeted us; and B. the school actually has an owner.

The forty-something dictatoreducator advised us that due to a plumbing problem, class was cancelled today.  When I attended St. GiveMeYo$ I thoroughly enjoyed surprise days off because of things like snowstorms, water main breaks or faculty arrests, but my daughter reacted quite differently; she was distraught.  She couldn’t get it through her pretty little braided head that she was being denied access to HER classroom.

It took us a little while to walk back to the van because my studicious genius kept stopping to see why she had to be with Daddy and her brother instead of her school friends and teachers.  She wanted this nightmare to be over.  That’s when my sensitive side took over.

“Honey, school’s closed today.  That’s just the way it is.”

“I don’t want it to be closed,” she said.  “I’m the star of the week” (a rotating honor was bestowed upon her this week and she obviously looked forward to it).

“Me neither, beautiful, but it’s out of my control and you’ll still be the star of the week tomorrow.” 

Unfortunately the conversation didn’t end there.

“Why is my school closed?”

I figured that honesty was the best policy with a four-year-old so I explained that the toilets were broken.

“The kids won’t have to use the toilet,” she said.

Wow, that would be a solution if all the preschoolers adhered to my daughter’s proclaimation.  Unfortunately the teachers and the “owner” probably wouldn’t take her word for it so I didn’t bother making this suggestion.

“I’m sorry, big girl, but you can’t go to school today.”

That’s when the water works kicked in.  By this time we were at the van and she didn’t want to admit defeat so she refused to climb on in so I lifted her somewhat gently and tried unsuccessfully to get her seated comfortably.  She immediately ran the three feet across the van and stood in front of her now screaming brother.  I guess he already knows that old statement misery loves company.  At this point I considered joining in but decided the best thing to do was distract them and strap her in before she knew what hit her.  The hitting her’s only a figure of speech so don’t call the authorities just yet.  My “look at the hippo” stunned them just enough to give my ears a break and gave me the opportunity to strap the dejected princess in her car seat.

Her despair really set in as we drove away.

“Someone’s bringing a snack and I’m not going to eat it with my friends,” she said.

That’s when my supreme ingenuity kicked in.

“Would you like to have a special snack with your friend in the seat next to you when we get home?”

Her face lit up and she giggled. 

“Daddy, you mean my brother can be my friend and we can have a snack together?”

“Exactly.  We can pretend that he’s just your friend and you can have a snack and some juice together.”

At this point the doldrums left the vehicle and she speculated what the snack might be and so did I.  Hopefully I could meet her expectations with something out of the ordinary.  

Back at the ranch I rustled the kids into the house with promises of a fun snack.  They eagerly climbed into their chairs as I filled bowls with trail mix that had M&Ms in it and they were ecstatic.

My daughter’s passion for learning and socializing pleased me to no end, but the fact that a good snack is the only cure for her morose attitude might lead to a weight problem if we have a harsh winter with a lot of snow days this year.  Does Jenny Craig have a preschool program?

The Waiting (part one)

I’m not much of a dieter so take what I have to say with a (multi-) grain of salt and a pound of sugar.

I took the daughter to BJ’s the other night to do a little bulk shopping because we were down to seventeen rolls of Charmin and two 19.7 oz. boxes of Honey Nut Cheerios at the house so it was obviously time to replenish the shelves in our basement. 

We hit a little bump in the road in the beginning of our excursion, as my daughter puked in the parking lot before we went inside.  This was kind of odd because our boy’s usually the puker (see Yummy, Blleh, Bbllleeehhh, Yummy), but she’s a trooper and decided to carry on with the mission without any prodding from me.  All did seem well when we headed in because her stomach must’ve been empty by the size of the puddle in front of the Lexus’s driver’s door parked next to us.

After the quick cleanup in the men’s room the two of us loaded mass quantities of things we use at the house into the cart.  You know, like, four tubes of toothpaste, two huge jugs of refillable anti-bacterial soap, eight tubs of Vaseline, six jars of mayo and an apple.  Just things we needed… I thought.  I should have brought a list.

I knew that we needed wheat bread so we headed toward that area with high hopes of getting what we needed.  No such luck.  After pacing back-and-forth between the three bread aisles for about thirty minutes I came to the conclusion that they were out of the butter-top version I usually buy; all that was left was the whole-grain stuff, which I know is good for you, but tastes like a sponge, or cardboard, or something non-food like.  You may ask, have you actually tasted it, and the answer would be a resounding YES… I think. 

I thought about stopping somewhere else on the way home, but it was almost my little girl’s bedtime and I figured that we could handle whole-grain for once.  Let me rephrase that, the kid’s and my wife could handle whole-grain for once so I grabbed a loaf and headed to the checkout.

This short story made long was what brought me to my current state of fear.  I discovered yesterday that I didn’t buy the whole-grain loaf; I bought multi-grain instead by accident.  I really don’t know anything about multi-grain besides that it smells like PLAY–DOH, but I did read on the package it’s a great source of fiber.  This kind of scares me because my kids don’t really need any assistance in the bathroom.  Well, not that kind of assistance.  If anything, I’d like to curb their output if possible.  Even though this stuff went through my mind I fed it to both of them anyway.  My son’s eaten it yesterday and today with his jelly and peanut butter and my daughter today only with hers.

The boy has gone dump-less since before his first taste of this flavorless vessel for things you normally put on a sandwich, such as jelly, peanut butter, lunch meat, salmon or cheese, so I’m hoping it isn’t some sort of time-released colon bomb that goes off in 48 hours because I think the load would exceed the maximum capacity of his pull-up.  If this faux food affects people differently, my daughter might be in a bind at preschool right now if it hits her just right so I’m keeping my fingers crossed. 

It seems to be out of my control so it’s just a waiting game.  Hopefully it’s worth the wait.

No Playing in Preschool

My daughter’s new to the whole school scene this year so we like to interrogate her when she gets dismissed from her daily 2 1/2 hour ordeal.  We ask open-ended questions like What’d you do today, What did you learn, Is your teacher a bitch, and What kids did you play with.

Her answer to the last question floored me. 

“Kids are not supposed to play with other kids in preschool.” 

It kind of inferred an answer to question number three until my daughter revealed the origin of this edict through further prodding, er questioning.

“Who said that kids aren’t supposed to play with kids?” I asked.

“I did,” she said.  “Kids are only supposed to play with toys by themselves at preschool.”

There had to be more to this so I asked a leading question.

“Did one of your teachers say this?”

“No, Daddy.  I came up with this by myself.”

“Are you sure that your teacher didn’t say this while she was screaming at the class?” I asked innocently.

“No Daddy, the teacher doesn’t scream at the class, she talks nicely.”

After some reassurance my wife and I convinced her that it’s okay to play with other kids at preschool and that in fact her teacher’s not a bitch and I really need to accept the fact that my little girl’s in someone else’s capable hands part of the day.  At least it’s only part of the day… for this year at least.