Tony Woodlief | Author

Parenting snapshots

I feel guilty when I see all those hits from my wonderful readers, and I remember that I haven’t posted anything new in a few days. Then I remember that most of you don’t pay me, while the people who do pay me have been demanding most of my waking hours.

Still, I want to share a couple of things with you today, kind readers. What’s more, in the next couple of days I will fill you in on some Big News for the Sand in the Gears staff. Aren’t you just tingling all over with anticipation? I have that effect on people, you know.

Back to the matters at hand, which aren’t great matters of national security, mind you, but if you want that you can read one of 10,000 daily news issue blogs (and odds are once you’ve read the one, you’ve read the others anyway). My, that was catty, wasn’t it?

Anyway.

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The Scene: My family and I are walking through a park near our house. I have the baby jogger, but Caleb has decided he wants to run too, so he’s a little bit ahead of us, head down, little arms pumping diligently, bobos slapping on the sidewalk. Across the park, about a quarter-mile away, a high school track team jogs along the edges of a field.

Me: “I know men and women are supposed to be equal and all, but did you ever notice that when a track team’s boys and girls go running together, most of the girls clump up significantly behind the boys?”

Wife: “That’s because they’re all talking.”

Me: “That’s not very politically correct, you know.”

Wife: “But look at them. You can see them talking.”

Me: “It’s not about what you can see, it’s about what you’re supposed to believe.”

Wife: “I guess I’m a scientist at heart. Observe, baby.”

Me: “You know this is going in the blog, right?”

Wife: “Speaking of which, I have a question. How come you never blog any of the dumb things you say?”

Me: (deleted)

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Proof that I am a bad parent: Caleb went to spend the day with some friends who live on a farm. This involved much frolicking and sweating, which was fine, because I like to hose him down in the back yard each day anyway. But check out the following exchange:

Woman: “Hey kids, let’s go feed the chickens.”

Caleb: “Yeah, let’s go feed the chicken nuggets.”

Just to highlight the distance between good and bad parenting, I’ll share with you what the child of this friend then asked:

Child of Good Parent: “What’s a chicken nugget?”

Bad parent. I am a very bad parent.

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