My daughter is six and my son is three. He looks at her like she is the best thing since sliced bread and she usually looks at him like he is an old moldy muffin.
Every single day, he wakes up basically living on this earth to play with her.
And every single day she wakes up cranky and just wanting to watch Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. (Which, by the way, has about 30,000 seasons and yet they never can defeat the bad guys. Seems like it might be time to take the “Mighty” out of your name, guys. Just sayin’.)
So when my son looked up at me with big sad eyes to play Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles with him, after asking his sister three times in less than two minutes, I decided to take a new approach to parenting.
I sat down my daughter, looked at her straight in the eye and told her the truth.
“I birthed your brother so I wouldn’t ever have play Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.”
She looked confused.
I continued, “I birthed him so that you can be the person who is more fun than I am. The person he’d want to play with.”
She thought for a minute. Sat herself up and said, “I didn’t ask you to do that. You did that all on your own. You always tell me – you get what you get and you don’t throw a fit.”
Then she sat down with her granola bar and turned on the Power Rangers.
Damn her. And damn me for thinking that something like birthing might actually get me out of having to pretend I’m a freakin’ mutant turtle.
Daughter: 1, Mother:0
