My Kids are already smarter than me

I have two kids. Lucas is five now. He'll turn six on January 16th. Cadence is four. Her birthday, August 9th, is one day before mine and two days before our wedding anniversary (no, I'm not married to my daughter - I meant my wife and I).

They say part of the joy of having children is being able to discover the world again through their eyes. They have so many questions and there's so many simple things that amaze them when they're this young. It's also a fine opportunity for a wise-ass such as myself to get a few doozies over on them. For the longest time, I had both kids convinced that I could change traffic lights from red to green simply by blowing in their direction. I, of course, was watching the opposing lights and timing it so that when they changed to yellow, I took a big inhale and blew. I'm not sure they understand the whole system yet, but I'm sure they know dad has a trick to doing it now.

With Christmas right around the corner, I thought I'd come up with an ingenious way of getting through stores without having to buy a bunch of toys and without just flatly rejecting the kids' requests and having them start bawling in the store. My secret? THE LIST. Ah yes, whenever my daughter pointed out a toy or a piece of clothing (yep, she's already into clothes and makeup) she wanted, I'd say "Well Christmas is coming... be good... I'll add this to 'the list' and we'll see how you behave."

This work very, very well for the longest time until last Friday. Cadence was sick and had to stay home from preschool. My wife had already committed to helping some friends exercise some race horses. So, I selflessly stayed home from work and hung out with Cadence. I figure the kid's sick... this is a chance for me to catch some shut-eye and kick back for the day. Nope. She didn't feel like snuggling with daddy. She wanted to color. She wanted to read books. She wanted (me) to play with her dolls. It was driving me nuts. Finally, I suggested we go to the gym. See, the gym has "kids club" where parents can drop off their little terrorists for an hour or two while they work out, take a class, or go for swim.

My work-outs are no walk in the park but faced with the option of four more hours of harassment at home from my daughter, the gym seemed like nirvana. I also made a side-deal with Cadence that, after the gym, I'd take her to lunch and we could eat anything she wanted. She chose sushi. Yeah, you heard me. The kids eats sushi (California rolls) like they were candy. She like Miso soup and yellowtail sashimi too.

So after the gym and a shower, we end up eating at this local sushi joint called Yamoto. Two doors down from Yamoto is The Bike Doctor and Cadence asked very nicely after lunch if we could go in and look around. I obliged.

It only took a few seconds for Cadence to pick out this snazzy pink bike right inside the front door.

"I want this one daddy!" she said insistantly, slapping the seat with her hand.

"But you already have a bike, Cadence."

"No, that's an old bike. I want this one. Lucas got a new bike."

I knew I was heading into the weeds with this conversation so I fell back on THE LIST. My saviour. Mentioning the list has gotten me out of so many potential public tantrums, I almost considered trying it on my wife.

"Well," I started "Ya know Christmas is coming. If you want we can put it on the list and see what happens."

Cadence put her hand up as if she was stopping traffic. "No daddy! I have enough things on the list! I want this bike now! The list is full already!"

I was dumbstruck. So much for the list. I quickly ushered her out of the store and went to Plan B. "Hey, how would you like an ice cream?!"

I kinda thought that was the end of the story. My daughter had outsmarted me and had circumvented the tried and true list philosophy. But she wasn't done yet. Later, when we picked my son, Lucas, up from the school bus stop, she proudly proclaimed "Guess what Lucas! Me and daddy when to the bike store today and we're getting new bikes tomorrow!!"

Yeah, it took a few minutes to get out of that one... especially with "the list" expunged from my arsenal.