My kids are amazing. They truly are. Thanks mostly to my wife they are well-behaved, well-adjusted, respectful, funny, and mature for their ages (8 and 10)…MOST OF THE TIME.
But every once in a while I see things from them that make me wonder if they are insane. Or if I am insane. Or if we are all on the verge of going insane.
Here’s a small peek into our insanity, brought to you by the absurd arguments my kids have had over the last year.
The 5 Most Ridiculous Arguments My Kids Have Had This Year
1. The Elevator Buttons – The controllers for our Wii have at least five buttons. The Xbox controllers have at least ten. But just when you think your kids are over the whole, “it’s fun to push buttons” thing, you get in an elevator. Suddenly pushing a button is more fun than Disney World. My kids fight over this like power forwards fighting for a fourth quarter rebound. Is it the fact that it lights up or the fact that it alters your destination? Who knows. Who cares.
The only thing that kids want to do more than push elevator buttons? Swipe the room key card in the hotel door. Apparently this is the apex of a child’s existence. It’s like using a credit card and breaking into a room at the same. Last time we stayed at a hotel Kylie offered all of her elevator button privileges to Parker in exchange for hotel door privileges. He rejected that offer like a bad organ transplant. Why strike a deal when we can argue about it for days?
2. The Toothpaste Battles – If our economic system ever breaks down and we are forced to use dental hygiene products as currency, it’s good to know my kids will be mentally prepared. I don’t know if it’s because the brushing of teeth happens before bedtime when everyone is tired and grumpy, or if they really do believe that toothpaste is a rare commodity along the lines of platinum and Honus Wagner baseball cards, but fights about toothpaste are a weekly occurrence here at the house.
Last week the problem was that Parker ran out of toothpaste from his travel sized tube he had received from the dentist, so he tried to use some of Kylie’s. This did not go over well with Kylie, who was protecting the last ounce of her mint-flavored non-Newtonian fluid like it was a precious metal. I implored Kylie to share, informing her that “I could go to the store tomorrow and buy 20 huge tubes of toothpaste for 5 bucks.” This gross exaggeration might have been a lie, but it worked in helping her understand that she needed to let it go.
3. The Toothpaste Battles, Part II – To follow up on that last point, I did not buy 20 huge tubes of toothpaste, instead opting for one “tube” of Aqua Fresh in the stand-up pump. As a kid I always thought the red, white, and blue multicolored glob of paste was the coolest thing ever. My kids weren’t that impressed, but were happy to have more toothpaste.
“Another fire put out by the best dad in the world,” I thought to myself as I walked back downstairs. That is, until I heard Parker yelling for me that Kylie was putting the toothpaste on “her side of the sink.”
Sometimes you look for the happy medium so that both children feel like the situation was handled fairly. And sometimes you look at your kids and say, “Really? We’re arguing over who’s side of the sink the toothpaste is on?” until the situation becomes uncomfortable. I went with the latter.
4. The Seat – We have a large sectional in our basement that is flanked by an end table on one end and no end table on the other end. Why do I make this distinction? Because apparently sitting on the cushion next to the end table is so important, it’s worth risking your life over.
Whenever my kids have decided to go downstairs to watch TV, I watch them out of the corner of my eye to see who’s going to think of it first. Inevitably one of them will realize “Ooh, if I rush downstairs I can get THE SEAT,” and they will hurriedly grab their snack and race down the basement steps. At this point the other one realizes they’ve missed their chance and will start complaining, “You sat in the seat last time!” even though they have no idea if that’s true.
If I had a nickel for every time I’ve said, “Stop arguing over that foolish seat,” I could pay the legal fees to incorporate my own end table business.
5. The Whipped Cream – My kids love whipped cream on their ice cream because, well, they’re kids. They love it so much that you’d think the first thing they’d do when I set their bowls in front of them was take a huge bite, right? Wrong. That would make way too much sense.
Instead, they immediately slide their bowls next to each to see which child is loved more by their father. I swear, if they put the level of scrutiny and care into their homework that they put into determining who has received more whipped cream, they would never get an answer wrong. I’m just waiting for the day they ask for a kitchen scale for Christmas so they can make it more official.
Lately I’ve given up. Instead of trying to make it even I give one of them a little bit extra on purpose so I can teach them that life isn’t fair. That usually goes over really well. I love it.
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What about you? Do your kids have ridiculous arguments? Do you remember having dumb fights as a kid?