I call you names behind your back.  Under my breath of course, when you are clearly out of earshot.  I don’t want to hurt your feelings.  It’s just that, as you’ll learn in junior high, name-calling really helps blow off steam.  And occasionally you behave like an a-hole. You have to admit that.

I throw away your artwork sometimes.  A lot of the time actually.  It’s a supply and demand issue.  These days, you can create pretty pictures at a rate of 28 pages per hour.  But we only have so much wall and refrigerator space.  So you see, the supply grossly outnumbers the demand.  I keep some for posterity of course.  Just not any of the ones made from dry noodles and cereal.  That’s like putting out a welcome mat for bugs and vermin and nobody has time for that.

Yup, I put the hole in the inflatable beach ball that kept knocking over my stuff.  It was me.  I stabbed it with a letter opener and found it very satisfying.  Who uses letter openers to open letters anyway?  Why do I have one if I’m not supposed to pop inflatable toys and my children’s hopes and dreams with it?  Put me in time out.  Ground me. Please. Seriously. Just for a couple of weeks.

The amount I’m willing to pay for a babysitter so I can have a night out with Daddy is astronomical.  And that’s the real reason you didn’t get the Barbie Dreamhouse for your last birthday.

Most parents say they love their children equally, that they don’t have a favorite.  Most parents are liars.  I do have a favorite.  Whichever one of you is the most cooperative at any given moment is my favorite.  In this context, cooperative can be operationally defined as any behavior that is not yelling, breaking stuff, hitting, writing on the wall, kicking, punching, elbowing me in the eye, cussing, biting, relieving yourself on the carpet, whining, shrieking, jumping off the furniture, or vomiting.  I think we can all agree that there is a ridiculously low probability of both of you abstaining from all of these behaviors at the same time.  So choosing a favorite is generally not very challenging.

I like the same movies you like.  The first time I see them.  Sometimes the second.  But after 19 viewings, my interest starts to run thin.  So when you ask me if we can watch Despicable Me 2 again, the list of things I would rather do begins with deep cleaning the refrigerator and ends with cataloguing your My Little Pony collection in Sanskrit.

I throw away your Halloween/Easter/Parade candy.  Well, I eat it.  Regardless of which method of disposal I choose, no child needs that much candy.  Call me a problem solver.