Least Favorite Thing to hear from your Day-Care Provider

There is one thing you DO NOT want to hear from your child's day-care provider when you pick up your child. Your daughter was in time out for pushing a boy down. So? Good for you, Peyton . Your child did not want to use the potty chair. So? You child did not eat her lunch today. So? She doesn't eat at my house . You child got into the cabinet under the sink and drank bleach, got sick but seems to be OK now. RIGHT ON! . Your child did not take a nap today. Excuse me?

This might be backwards to some, but you have not lived under the roof of my house when said child has decided to NOT like the food she has eaten in the past and has opened the flood gates, here-to-fore known as tear ducts. You also have not been around when, upon the parent's resistance to her request that she not be made to eat such vile food, a coughing fit begins, where the child's mother actually BELIEVES that the child is too sick to nourish herself. You also have not driven 17 miles with the napless wonder, fielding such absurd requests like, "I need my juice/milk/snack/shoes off/puppy in my lap/coat off/hair brushed out of my face..etc. etc. all the while trying to stay alive in the fog. Each 'no' is followed by a screech and fake tears, some disdain for being born, and a request for her own phone line.

So how do you handle this type of child? Move closer to the airport, for starters. Jet wash has a tendency to drown out that pitch of whiny noise. Ignoring it is near impossible. Last night, my daughter wanted chips, a peanut butter sandwich and pudding for dinner. KNOWING she had taken a nap, I thought it best to ask her what she WANTED to eat, thinking doing so would avoid what happened next.

1. Hand pudding to child - child says, "I DON'T LIKE IT!" You eat it all the time, frickin liar. EAT IT!
2. Hand sandwich to child - child says, "I DON'T LIKE THE BREAD" (we have purchased and used the same bread forever. She had it in the womb every time my wife had toast. LIAR! EAT IT!
3. Hand chips to child - child takes chip, takes bite, bites her lip, now associating the excruciating pain to that damn chip. I DON'T LIKE IT! - yes you do, you just don't like biting your own flesh. Most people don't. EAT IT!

Mom, in her loving way and desiring to make the insanity disappear, asks her, "Are you done?" Peyton says yes. I thought to myself, knowing verbalizing this thought would only make things worse. You would have to begin, I would think, in order to be 'done,' do you not? "Can you finish feeding Jacob while I go give her a bath?" GOD yes...another male. Yes, I will satisfy the male. That doesn't take much. Being goofy usually works. I can be goofy. Yes, I will feed the boy child. You take the broken one. Here, son, play with the remote. Want a beer?

So, as I sat feeding my son, I listened to the disaster going on upstairs. Since I was unable to SEE what was actually happening, it sounded like my wife poured shampoo directly into the eyes of my daughter, Peyton. Crying, crying, crying....some splashing. I think her bath was about 8 seconds long, ironically, the same time it takes to ride a champion bull for a score. I hear my wife say, "Off to bed since you won't stop crying," then I hear an audible *THUD*, followed by a lot of crying. This is where my daughter says, "I am going to lay here, forcing you to pick up all 26 pounds of me, and take me to bed if you want me there so bad." My wife's limit is 30 pounds, so we were safe there. All of this, simply because...she did not...take...a nap.

She does not really cry when she gets her shots. Something stabs her and she is just inconvenienced. She gets inconvenienced and it sounds like she got stabbed. I know, say it twice and it will make sense. It is bass ackwards. It almost makes you get your mords wixed. Insanity I tell you. You would think birth control would be more popular.