Parenting 101
I've reached the point of diminishing returns when it comes to threatening to embarrass my daughter. This morning, The Boy and I were out on the front porch with her as she waited for the bus. Normally, we are sequestered safely inside the house so no fellow bus-riders will know that she actually has a family. Like most teenagers she is acutely aware of how uncool we are. The nice thing about her, is that she rarely seems to care. But the bus is different. If we embarrass her as she gets on the bus, she has to sit there, trapped in a metal tube while being harangued. There's nowhere to hide. This is where I come in.
Me: Hey! I know! Let's do the "Waiting for the Bus" dance! (*does horrific shuffling hillbilly dance*)
Boy: Hahahahaha! Yeah! (*does equally horrific chicken-like spasm thing*)
Girl: (*sigh*)
Me: I'm waiting for the schooool buss! I like the schooool busss!
Boy: I like to riiiiide it! I like to riiiiide it!
Girl: (*unaffected*) Are you done?
Me: Yeah. I guess so.
Boy: I like to riiiiide it. I like the schooool Busss!
Girl: Will you take him inside now?
Me: (*sigh) Yeah.I guess so.
Boy: I am in 8th grade! and I am stooopid!
Me: Okay. That's enough. Be nice.
Boy: I'm going to stay out here and dance.
Me: No you're not. Come on. Let's go eat some waffles.
Boy: Okay. (*runs inside*)
Me: You weren't even a little scared I'd embarrass you?
Girl: Nope.
Me: I'm losing my touch.
Girl: That's what she said!
I am stunned because a) She knows now I would never embarrass her on purpose, b) She totally used my best joke on me, and c) I'm her father, damnit! I'm supposed to be embarrassing, annoying and inappropriate!
Just as I'm walking inside, head hanging low from obvious failure at being a jackass, I hear the bus pull up. I watch my tall Girl stand up from her seat on the porch steps, and I realize that she really is growing up despite everything I've tried to prevent that. Just then I hear the back screen door slam shut. A blur in the driveway. I look back to see the Boy standing at the end of the driveway doing a particularly stirring rendition of the "Waiting for the Bus" dance. He keeps it up until the bus pulls away and he's laughing hysterically as I try and reprimand him without laughing.
He doesn't buy it.
How'd you get such a cool daughter?
How could she have turned out any other way?
Failure at being a jackass? I'm reminded of a line from the cinematic masterpiece, Caddyshack:
Judge Smails: You know, you should play with Dr. Beeper and myself. I mean, he's been club champion for three years running and I'm no slouch myself.
Ty Webb: Don't sell yourself short Judge, you're a tremendous slouch.
This comment has two things I love: Being called a jackass and a Caddyshack reference. A+ for you!
HAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAhaaaaaaaaaa! The hillbilly dance ALOOOOONE kills!
I think you've armed them both with the most deadly of all artillery: A sense of humor. (Bad people fucking hate that:D) ~OM
Don't you LOVE them now that they're real people? I love mine...they are embarrassing little buggers themselves...
I have my own dances, my own expressions, and I have recently come to call their (beloved) Jonas Brothers the BJ's (bros jonas) LOL.
This shit is just fun, and it gets better the older they get.
I can still embarrass the girls. I think when that day passes, I may cry.
Or be in diapers, cause it will never happen!
LOL I'm in love with your boy. Of course as a sister I would have killed him.
did I ever tell you that my sister spit on my ex-husband the first time she met him? turns out it was the right move...
Really, don't worry, there are so many better opportunities in the future to at an A grade in wrecking her life.
@OM: The Boy was still doing the Hillbilly dance this morning.
@LD: Messing with kids is why you have your own. That way they can't press charges.
@Jaimi: I like to think of it as vaccinating them for the inevitable college embarrasment that will come.
@Char: Heh. I wish I could have had some kind of warning like that.
@foxx:I don't want to wreck it. Just stir it up a bit. :)
So I don't mess with my kid enough. Huh. I didn't know it was that simple.
...CajunSoleil
I love it when kids start to "get" sarcasm and humor and payback. Yours are right on track to be every bit as cool as their old man.
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