Admonished by a Young Man

Put me in coach!

My oldest is nearly 9 going on Surly.

The upside is that he’s damn cute, and mostly reasonable.  He’s always had an adult streak of caution and perspective that runs a good 1.61 kilometers wide.  He can be stubborn, from time to time, and I have no idea where he gets that.

Possibly his mother?

Yesterday, as we were swimming at a friend’s pool, he growled at me, “Do you want to know why I’m mad at you?”

Apparently, I hadn’t recognized that he was mad, so he felt the need to point it out.  Of course, we’re all about communication in the household.  One of main rules is that if you tell us there’s been an accident, you won’t get in trouble.  It’s the lying about it that gets you into trouble.

That . . . mostly works.

The boys are still young.

But I digress.  The issue at hand was that when I tossed my youngest (at his request, mind you) up in the air to splash down in the water, my oldest had swum into the landing zone.  This was, according to my oldest, completely my fault.

I always offer to sit time out.  Forty-two minutes of quiet time with my book sounds like an apt punishment to me.  So far, they haven't taken me up on the offer.  Probably because they wouldn't meet their "Dad-I-need-something-every-five-minutes" quota.