stop, drop, and slap...

So, Wife encouraged me to post this about the girls; if you don't know them, it wont amount to much to you, but the deal is this; the Oldest is so much like Wife it is startling. The interesting thing about that is while many of her traits will be admirable as an adult, some are so very irritating coming from a little girl. She works really hard to get everything "just so" in order to maximize comfort and pleasure.



The Second Oldest is much more like "good old dad" here. Sleeps anywhere, wears anything, and she just cant be bothered with little details that have anything to do with the silly notion of personal comfort. If that means your underwear are on backwards when you pull them on in the morning; hey, no problem... its not worth changing them around, she's got stuff to do!



Then there is the pain vs. fun ration factor for both... Oldest is very sensitive to pain, and wants nothing to do with anything fun if it involves pain, before, during or after (like on her bottom). Second Oldest however, is quite different. I would NOT say that she assesses the situation, and decides to do wrong anyway, even if she gets a spank (that would require forethought), but when it happens, she rarely cries, and just shrugs it off and moves on.



All this is to back up a small story that happened the other night. Some time ago, after being frustrated with the girls perpetually coming out of their bedroom for "something really important to ask you" or "just need a drink"... etc, etc, ad infinitum, they started asking about what legit reasons they could go out of their room for. My response was "Nobody comes out of this room unless you are ON FIRE!!! That is the only reason I want ANYONE to come out of this room!!! Clear?" "Yes-sir, OK Daddy".



OK, so the other night Oldest comes out of her room with "Just one really important question, Daddy". I think that I will just nip this in the bud, turn this evening into a lesson, so I jumped up and told Wifey: "Look out! She's on fire!" (obviously; she came out of her room, you know) Then I picked her up and tossed her on the couch and started slapping the "fire" out from all over her, while hearing screams of "stop it daddy, its not funny, ow www, please stop..." After I stopped, I explained how I was sure she was on fire (she was out of her room) so I must slap the fire out! She was quite unimpressed and turned around and went straight back to bed, upset with me. Heh, Mission Accomplished! I felt pretty darned good about my parenting, I showed her, didn't I? Funny, too, even though she didn't think so.



Just about the time I sat back down and was feeling pretty good about myself, something struck me: I leaned over to Wifwy and said "you know what, we're not done here. As much as she hated that, I bet Second Oldest will be out here for some "fire-slapping"." I no more than said it and the door opens and here she comes with a great big smile on her face, and while I sat there trying not to smile as my little prophecy became true in front of my eyes, she says: "look at me daddy, I'm on fire." And I am here to tell you, the smile hardly faded into winces at all during an intense "fire-slapping".