Dad's Daily Dunder-headed Deed

I had the kids to myself for the first hour of church, so I made an executive decision that the four of us would walk. CKDD was off playing Stake Primary Presidency at another ward and planned to meet up with us after our sacrament meeting. She drove the Civic, which meant when it came time to go home, they would leave the car at church and walk while I performed my clerking duties.

As we were walking, Lucy discovered that daddy’s car (the cool car) would be at church. Never a fan of walking if a perfectly good car is available, she excitedly stated she was looking forward to riding home in it.

I voiced concern that her plan may not work, “Lucy, I don’t think you guys will be able to ride home in Dad’s car.”

“Why not?”

“Well, there is no car seat in my car. Hal needs a car seat.”

“Well what if one of us went home after church and brought the car seat back to the church?” she asked.

At this point I decided to be clever and turn this back on her, and propose she go home to get the car seat. Once she realized the amount of work required with this plan and that it involved not only walking home but also walking back to the church lugging a car seat, she’d recant. “That sounds like an interesting idea, Lucy. I nominate you to go back and get the car seat.”

There was a moment of thoughtful silence, followed by her reply, “Which parent is going to go with me?”

A little surprised she hadn't punted yet, I answered, “Neither of us. You’ll walk home by yourself, get the car seat, and bring it back to the church. By yourself.”

This was followed by more silent thinking. Wow, she’s really contemplating this. What if she doesn’t go along with my little ploy, I wondered to myself.

“Well, how will I get the car seat out of the van?” she asked.

Uh, she isn’t supposed to be thinking it through with quite this amount of detail. But what’s the worry, I’ll just tell her how. She’ll relent. “You have to unbuckle it from the back seat. Then you can pull it out and carry it ALL THE WAY TO THE CHURCH. BY YOURSELF.”

There was a final moment of silence, as my Underestimation of Her Resolve awaited the verdict.

“OK,” she said. "So we'll meet after Primary, then I'll go home and get the car seat."

Wait a minute, that was the wrong answer--this can't happen. Doesn’t she get it? I can’t send her back there to a locked house for a carseat! It was about then I was reminded of the quote from one of those How to Scream Louder so They’ll Obey the First Time parenting books that said something like, “You shouldn’t make threats you aren’t willing to back up.”

I decided to say nothing and go along with her idea, at least until I could think up a way to convince her that it wasn't going to work. After an hour or so and some counsel with my better half, we decided to offer her the choice between waiting around at the church with me until I finished my duties and riding in the car, or walking home with Mom and her brothers followed by LUNCH. Thankfully, she happily chose to walk, and my ego was spared.

For a person of few words, I certainly seem to know how to say too much.

H-J