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Lately, my wonderful daughter has been going through what the two of us amusedly refer to as a "Veruca Salt" phase. I tolerate this behavior because I love her, but also because our exchanges give her an outlet for aggressions that might not otherwise see the light of day. As I see it, that's what fathers are for. Sometimes, though, my patience runs out.
After picking her up from her flute lesson this afternoon and being subjected to an unending stream of knock-knock jokes, fake shrieks and attempts to distract and disturb me by making rapid movements I could only see out of the corner of my eyes, I decided that I was going to assert myself. Since she was already rendering the classical station inaudible, I switched to the new album by The Soft Pack that I'd been making notes on earlier in the afternoon. Predictably, this move led to anguished pleas for me to turn off the loud music. But when I did, her high-decibel onslaught on my sanity continued unabated.
So I turned it back on again, only a little louder. This led her to turn it off on her own. I switched it back on. Off and on, off and on the cycle went. Soon enough, though, our self-ironizing conflict became a mutually enjoyable game. Even though she continued to protest the music, I noticed that she was swaying to the catchy rhythms. By the time I had delivered her to her destination, I'd gotten to hear the first half of a few different songs many times over. And Skylar was flushed with a delight that she immediately doubled by informing her mother of my horrible misdeeds. Parenting can be really strange sometimes, but all the more rewarding as a consequence.
