A conversation with M-: I am a skilled negotiator.

My 5-year-old daughter M- is still working out the kinks in her understanding of numbers, as evidenced by our recent conversation below:

M- (putting on her most comically dignified voice as she approaches me, clutching a bundle of imaginary balloons): I would like to buy these... 8 balloons, please.

Me (like a bored street vendor who knows he's got you right where he wants you, but doesn't much care anymore): That'll be four hundred dollars, please.

M- (still with the voice): I don't have that much money.

Me: Then you don't have any balloons, either.

M- (sliding toward her normal voice, as she tries valiantly to keep this one from getting away from her): How about this, how about we bargain: I will bring the number down to: six... million dollars.

Me (slipping out of character in disbelief): Six million dollars? DOWN to $6 million?!?

M- (regaining her Monopoly-guy voice in full glory): Or wait... How about... I pay you what you asked for. Here you go! (sprays fake money at me and runs)

So in the end, she acted pretty much like me in every negotiation I've ever been forced into.

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You may enjoy my previous M- conversations, (8YO son) D- conversations, and (wife) J- conversations.

A conversation between M- and D-: Justice, served lukewarm

My 5-year-old daughter M- was indulging my 7-year-old son D-'s penchant for spontaneous, awkward hand-to-combat practice one day recently, when he began the following exchange:

D- (with the expected pseudo-karate posturing): I'm gonna break your HEAD off!

M- (popping his balloon as sharply as she can): No, you're not! You'd be in HUGE trouble... You'd have to sit on the STAIRS for the rest of your LIFE!

D- (accepting this at face value, then feeling smug as he thinks about its relative leniency): No more than that, though.

M- (thinking aloud, qualifying her previous statement): ...Until you were a grownup, then you could go back to eating candy, and playing, and everything.


It seems "life" as they know it ends in just a few years. They're probably right.

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You may enjoy my previous D- conversations, M- conversations, and (wife) J- conversations.

Things that amuse me, Vol. 12

Here are a few of the things that have been amusing me recently:

1. You might want to re-evaluate your life priorities if you carefully erect a 30-foot pole in your front yard, and then use it to proudly display your Arctic Cat flag. That's right, there's only room for one flag on that pole.

2. I think Redbox might want to manually review its recommendation formulas. For example, while checking availability for The Tree of Life recently, the second movie listed under "You may also be interested in" was Twilight: Breaking Dawn. ............No, thanks. That's like stocking candy-coated dung balls as impulse-purchase items right next to... DVDs of Terence Malick's "The Tree of Life".

3. Because I talk about my kids in this blog, I am frequently faced with situations that have luckily not yet happened in real life. Like, for instance, being greeted with, "Hey Soul Sister," in marketing e-mails. Or being nearly constantly reminded that, "[I'm] a busy mom." I've got news for those people, though-- I ain't that busy. Mostly I just sit on the couch with a box of bon-bons and "watch my stories" while telling the kids to shut up and get back to work. Ah, motherhood.