How I Once Created A Monster

I well remember my eldest son amusing me many times over with his cheeky, childish ways of thinking, ways which at the same time, made me feel pretty damn dumb.

One piece of slapstick humour was when he was crawling on all fours, towards his very first birthday cake. Just as he managed to position himself directly over the cake, his arms suddenly gave way and he fell face first, right into the soft meringue top. When I lifted him off said pastry, it was a sight to behold. He had meringue and whipped cream spread all over his poor little infant face. He was totally covered in it. What a birthday picture that was.

We were once watching a cartoon called ’The Little Orphan Kittens.’ My son asked me what the word ‘orphan’ meant. I simply explained it meant that the kittens didn’t have any parents.

“Well that can’t be true pops, if they didn’t have any parents, how did they get born huh?”

I had no answer to that smart-ass reply.

And how about this for a bit of lateral thinking? One day he asked me what the word pregnant meant. I prudently told him that it was like when a dog had puppies.

“Well, you know what pops, I’m gonna kill Billy Smith 'cause he’s such a liar. He said his mom is pregnant, and I know for a fact that they don’t even have a dog!”

Another time we were passing a big department store in the car and Smart Alec son saw a big and bold, gold sign on the side of the building which declared….

‘Arighi Bianchi, A great Store Since 1854‘

I almost crashed the car when he called out…

“Does that mean it was a shit store before 1854, pops?”

And I well remember how after telling him to stop acting like a child, he quite rightfully exclaimed…."But pops, I am a child!"

The best one was when after he started school he picked up the ‘F’ word. I told him off about that in no uncertain terms. Shortly afterwards I was horrified to overhear him telling his younger sister

“Ok listen up Sis, you can’t use that f@ck’n word ‘f@ck’ I told you about, 'cause pop says it’s a f@ck’n bad word.”

When I tried to chastise him he claimed he had a totally legitimate reason for using the word as he was merely teaching his sister not to use it. What could I say to that?

One day I got a call from the Catholic school he attended. At break time the nuns placed a long table in the canteen. As the kids entered the room the first thing they saw was a long table, with a big tray loaded with chocolate bars on it.

Knowing all too well how some kids would be too tempted to take more than one bar of chocolate, the nuns had written a sign that simply stated…..

‘Take only one bar of chocolate. Remember, God is watching!’

At the opposite end of the long table was a basket full of juicy green apples. Apparently, my son was the culprit who had scribbled out a sign that read….

‘Take all the apples you want, God is too busy watching the bars of chocolate to notice.’

As you can imagine, there was never a dull moment in our house. How I ever got through it I don’t know. I almost died laughing many a time. And that is the lesson to be learned, just laugh along with it, it’s the best and most enjoyable thing you can do.