There are plenty of times my son loses his cool with me because I’m just doing my job as a parent. Making him turn off the TV or iPad, making him eat vegetables, making him go to bed or bathe… I’m prepared for a fight. But then there are the times when I can just throw up my hands in defeat: I’ve failed him.
13 (more) Times My Incompetence Enraged My Preschooler
1- When I forgot to pack some change to buy him cheesy dibbles¹ after gymnastics.
2- When I couldn’t tell him which kitten had been sitting on his lap.
For reference, our kittens look like this:
3- When I couldn’t put his hair back after his buzz cut.
4- When I couldn’t rewind Arthur on TV after apparently ruining everything when I tried to impress him by calling out the answer to Mr. Ratburn’s math question. (“What’s the square root of 16?” Apparently, HE wanted to yell, “Four!” )²
5- When I couldn’t produce a poop on command to accompany his own poop in the toilet. (His poop was lonely.)
6- When he wanted me to draw something with wheels, so I drew a car, but he wanted me to draw something with wheels that was not a car.
7- When I couldn’t make his sticker that had lost all stickiness stick back onto his hand.
8- When I couldn’t “watch this” because I was driving.
9- When I couldn’t rebuild the super vehicle his Papa made him out of Lego since I had no idea what it looked like in the first place.
10- When I couldn’t unpop his animal balloon.
11- When I couldn’t complete his puzzle fast enough for his liking.
For reference, it might be labelled ages 6+, but I think it’s a misprint:
12- When I couldn’t find the show he wanted on Netflix, based on this description:
Title: Captain America Ninja
Description: May or may not contain Captain America. Possibly live action, possibly cartoon.³
13- When I couldn’t identify the superhero he described as wearing a yellow suit and glasses, having brown skin and hanging out with Spider-Man.
I spent two months trying to figure out who he was talking about. I asked supposed super hero experts. Every time someone asked him about super heroes, he would tell them that there was one whose name his mother didn’t know. Then they’d try to figure out who it was, and fail. Finally, he showed me this:
There he is! A dude with brown skin, black glasses, a yellow suit and in close proximity to Spider-Man! Then I had to turn to Facebook to learn that his name was Power Man. I’ve since been told by super hero experts that the Lego Power Man doesn’t look anything like comic-book Power Man.
How has your incompetence disappointed your children lately?
¹Please do not refer to them as Cheesies: as per The Penguins of Madagascar, they are Cheesy Dibbles.
²There’s no way he knew that before I yelled it.
³He meant American Ninja Warrior, a show he’s never actually seen that is not even available on Netflix.
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