Becoming My Parents

The kids are pushing me to become my parents. Despite the fact that I'm 11000 times busier than usual right now, they're every bit as needy and incompetent, and right about equally ungrateful and unappreciative. It's awesome. I am, however, keeping up with (at least) my share of the dishes, which is usually what I find myself doing almost every time I need to take a break from my work or when my wife needs the computer for hers (or for some reason the kids sneak on here to watch Japanese cartoons online...).

Here's a picture of my parenting skills in action. I'm rather happy with this picture, and the parenting skills behind it, although I don't think it would be admissible in a list of techniques for "parent of the year." The picture, at least, is really good, if not indicative of a strange scenario.
I just love how the late afternoon autumn sun is glinting off that lovely hand-crafted and glazed mug out in my yard. The color of the fading grass and the yellow maple leaves, and even the brown ones, all come together with its pale blue and the yellow-gold sun glint to make a rather lovely picture. It only begs one question, I guess: why is this lovely hand-crafted mug in my yard.

Answer: Clueless and Belligerent.

Real answer: I threw it there because I did not want to smash it, although I really wanted to smash it to make a point via going rather psychotic over the children, who are testing my nerves majorly while I'm all extra-stressed from work. C&B managed to leave milk in this mug after she's been told at least 600 times not to leave milk in mugs (she's supposed to wash them, but we're more than happy to concede if she merely rinses the milk out of them). This one didn't even make it back to the kitchen. After I noticed it had been sitting there for over two hours, then noticed that it still had milk in it, and then noticed that C&B was nowhere to be seen near this mug (which was by a plate still smeared with whatever she had eaten off of that plate, all on a table in the living room, which is nowhere near the kitchen sink), I flipped out.

The mug went in the yard after contemplating smashing it (noisily and with a great deal of fuss to make the child believe that maybe I'm a little less stable than she assumes I am when she behaves this way repeatedly) and deciding against it. It was a nice gentle toss. About an hour later, C&B went to get it after I told her she couldn't have anything else to eat or drink until she picked up and washed her dishes from earlier, including the mug, which she couldn't find and didn't remember using. It was rather entertaining watching her go into the yard to get it, but she pointed out on her return that what I did was "obviously unnecessary."

I pretended she didn't say anything and went on with my day, enjoying the lovely meal I spent far too long on so everyone would have something delicious to eat for dinner. This is exactly what my parents would have done, apparently, and to my chagrin, my mom found the story absolutely hilarious when I told it to her today, along with another apology for everything I did as a child, particularly when I was ungrateful for things I was given, particularly lazy, or ignorant of taking care of my mess when I should have known better (and did!).