(DRIVEWAY) From the moment we
added a second and third child to the family, the oldest of our three almost
immediately ‘grew up’. Having much smaller, more demanding children behind her
in the family line can do that.
But
The Eldest is also far easier to manage than the other two, and has been since
the other two showed up four and three years ago, respectively. Perhaps it is a
function of her personality, perhaps the result of her age. Most likely a
combination of the two.
At six
years old, The Eldest is still but a little bean sprout, but also capable of
surprising us with what she knows.
Like last
weekend when she explained to her little sister that spiders are not insects
because they eat insects and have neither antennae nor six legs.
She
looked to mom and dad for back-up. Mom and dad had to go to Google.
Google
told us The Eldest was right, also that we should have paid closer attention in
Biology 101.
In any
case, the child is whip smart, and clever too, in ways that make her so alarmingly
like her old man that her old man is legitimately concerned.
Let us
first detour through the archives of my life to the year 1984 or so, when The
Family Man Muser is himself but a little bean sprout of roughly six years old.
I am
sitting at the kitchen table, fussing over a bowl of vegetable soup according
to my customary dinnertime routine when the meal put in front of me consisted
of anything put a peanut butter sandwich.
The
soup had been in front of me long enough to go from piping hot to cold potage.
Soggy crackers had turned it to mush. I was disinterested, disgusted and
disinclined to carry on with what seemed like a gargantuan task at the time,
namely, to slurp that soup down stat.
It is
entirely possible that dinner had been served at five o’clock. By now it had to
be after six, with only my pleading father left at the table with me. But so frustrated
did he grow at my ingestive ineptitude that he, too, eventually vacated the dining
room, probably to keep from committing a crime against his own offspring, but
not before specifying that I was not to leave the table until the last spoonful
of soggy soup went down.
So
there I was, sitting alone at six years old or so, expected to put back a
bowlful of barf-inducing, disintegrating vegetables and cold broth, when the
natural solution came to mind.
Just
ditch the meal, do away with the evidence and never be found out.
In retrospect,
I often wonder why I did not just dump the soup down the sink, rinse the bowl
and put it away. It seems like the logical approach now.
Instead,
I took my mush to the pantry, pushed it to the back of the highest shelf I
could reach, and proceeded to build a fort of canned peas and corn around it. As
if that was not enough, I carried the ruse further by yelling to the basement
to let my father know that I had polished off my soup and had even done my
dishes.
He was
impressed, until about two weeks later when he reached for a can of corn and
came upon what I can only imagine was a bowlful of fuzzy mush by then.
Thankfully,
I escaped without much punishment, I think because my creativity earned me some
sympathy with the jury.
Fast-forward
to 2012, with me as the father to a sly and slightly sneaky six-year-old.
Mrs.
Family Man always puts yogurt in the girls’ lunches, and on a few recent
occasions, The Eldest’s yogurt has come home from school with her.
Unopened.
Uneaten.
After watching
this happen a few days in a row, we made it clear to The Eldest that she was to
eat her yogurt or risk an à propos punishment.
So she
did, and every day for the past little while, her first words to me when
picking her up from school have been dad,
I ate my yogurt today.
Fantastic.
High-fives for everyone.
But
wait a minute.
Last
weekend, as I cleaned out the family car, I made a discovery.
In the
backseat, next to where The Eldest sits alone, is a small storage compartment.
And as I looked over at that small storage compartment I could see that its
tiny little door could not completely close.
Flipping
it open, I came across not one, not two, but three little drinkable yogurt
containers, all full, all surreptitiously snuck away in the car’s hidden backseat
crevasse.
It was
vegetable soup in the pantry all over again! And really, I could not help but
laugh about it.
As I
brought my find to Mrs. Family Man’s attention, I remarked that I probably
should look under the seat too, wondering what else could be festering in
there.
Sure
enough, as I dipped my head below my darling daughter’s backseat spot, I found
another of the “dad, I ate my yogurt” yogurts, another one sneakily snatched
from the lunchbox during the five-minute drive to or from school, and left to
go bad in the far backseat.
Here I
understood my own father’s predicament in punishment when he discovered my soup-and-bowl
shenanigans from roughly 28 years ago.
We
attempted to scold, but that became impossible against our stifled laughter. It
was one we could let slide, if only because I have walked that path before, and
appreciated the clemency I received.
Signed,
The
Family Man Muser
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