Spank Me

This video doesn’t really require much of an introduction, but I’d feel lazy if I just put a video up without typing anything at all. This is Graham a couple of nights ago. He doesn’t want to eat his hot dog. In fact he doesn’t want to eat his hot dog so much that he’d rather have... well... I’ll let you watch it to find out for yourselves. (Sorry about the quality of the video, it was filmed on my camera phone.)

For those of you who don’t have young kids and are therefore not adept at understanding constant whining I’ll go ahead and post the transcript of the video below.

Me: What do you want Graham?
Graham: [Crying] A spankin’
Me: You want a spankin’?
G: [Still crying] Yeah.
Me: You want one now?
G: [Still crying] Yeah.
Me: Because you don’t want to eat your hot dog?
G: [Still crying] No.
Me: Can you eat your hot dog please.
G: [Still crying] But I don’t want to.
Me: What do you want?
G: [Yes, still crying] I want a spankin’ now.

Perhaps someone told him what they make hot dogs out of, or maybe there are just some days where you’d rather have a spankin’ than eat a hot dog. Some things never change.

Also, I’d like to point out that nothing says “loving father” like videoing your kids crying and laughing about it on your blog. It’s OK though, I really think that this will be one of those things that we can bond over and laugh about later on in life... probably during an extended therapy session.

Open Mouth, Insert Foot

About a week or two ago a friend of ours asked my wife to meet her 6 year old daughter as she was getting off the school bus and watch her for a couple of hours. To protect her identity I’ll call her Emma because it’s such a ridiculously popular name that it might as well be ‘Anonymous.’ With apologies to the millions upon millions of you out there who have named your daughter Emma. And yes I realize the irony in me writing that when my firstborn son is named David.

My wife has trouble saying “no” to anyone, a trait that has often worked in my favor, and so she agreed to watch Emma. My boys enjoyed playing with Emma at our house and she even helped my wife bake some cookies. Yes, things were going swimmingly until my wife announced that it was time to take her home.
“Awww, can’t I stay longer?” Emma pleaded.
“No honey, I have too many kids to take care of already,” replied my wife. That’s when it happened. Emma cocked her head to one side with a puzzled look on her face and thought for a second.
“But you only have two children,” said Emma who is from a family of three children, “how hard can that be?”

I am pleased to report that the doctors were able to successfully remove the spatula from Emma’s colon and she has been moved out of intensive care. She is expected to make a speedy recovery, and I’m assured that the emotional scars will heal in time too. Frankly, I think the experience will do wonders for her when she reaches the corporate world. If you openly mocked senior management like that you’d be packing your personal effects into a box within minutes. Maybe not literally within minutes, but you’d be gone just as quickly as senior management could find someone to tell them who you are, what department you’re in and how much they could save by replacing you with an intern or an easy button. (See, that’s how you take shots at senior management; from the brave anonymity of a pseudonym on an internet blog.)