Parents of the Year

Harrison has a toy farm train. The cars are tractors, farm trailers, etc. The track is plastic and sets up in a figure eight pattern. When the train runs over a certain piece of track it sets off songs. I’m not sure which is more annoying – “Farmer in the Dell” or "Old MacDonald". What makes it worse, though, is that it doesn’t have an easy on/off switch. It never fails. By the time I figure out how to turn it off, the song has already run its course. Did I mention it doesn’t have a volume control? All in all, it’s not the kind of toy we would have purchased ourselves. (No comment on who the gift was from - let's just say someone's parents who don't live near us and can't hear the lovely train tunes over and over and over ....)

Tonight, while Harrison was in his usual “I-refuse-to-eat-dinner-because-I’d-rather-be-playing” mode, he interrupted our dinner angrily yelling about how frustrated he was with a part of the track. For the third time tonight (and maybe the four thousandth time in the last two years) one of us had to get up (I know we don't "have to" to do anything our kids ask, but after a long day at work - the last thing either of us wants to do is upset the kids so please don't hassle me for enabling his behavior) and adjust the track for him so that it would fit together properly.

This is what I heard come out of Chris’ mouth in an extremely upbeat tone: “I just love doing this! Almost as much as I would love to have all of my teeth pulled out of my mouth…with a pliers…at once…and with a long steel rod shoved…up my…mumble, mumble.”