Bill and Theresa will probably get a kick out of this, especially as they seemed amused by stories of my son’s (mis)adventures when we took them out for dinner so long ago1.
Anybody that has a child will probably be fairly familiar with the blank and vacant expression being modeled by my son to the right here. Those that have children will also know that this vacant expression usually means they aren’t listening, and are far too engrossed in what they are currently doing. In this case, it was playing some Transformers game on the Cartoon Network’s website. He’s become incredibly good at playing all kinds of games on their website.
The other day, in an attempt to get into his brain as he was fearlessly battling the Decepticons, I was trying to pry out of him what he wanted for dinner. Many attempts to extract vital information from the child resulted in me getting a little frustrated as I couldn’t figure out what he wanted. I ended up giving up, and making him something, mac and cheese or something like that.
In what I thought to be a cunning plan, that only a parent can come up with, I asked him if he wanted “hippos on a bus”, to which the response was a grunt, and a quick change of subject onto how he was shooting the decepticons. I gave up, my cunning plan to see if he was paying attention obviously failed… so I thought.
Cut to today, when I asked him what he wants for dinner, he looks at me with a big grin, and says…
Daddy, I want hippos on a bus
Much to my horror, my plan had backfired on me. He then added, with more of a cheeky grin…
I also want giraffes on a bus daddy
Not only had my plan backfired… But he had twisted it.
So for those parents that think they can outsmart their children, or think their child is not listening… Think again!!
-
You have to come visit again guys, was a lot of fun last time ↩