Submitted by NASCAR Ranting and Raving Blog
Just after snack, on her way to bed, on Saturday night she climbs up on my lap and says she wants to watch NASCAR with me.
Remember, this kid hates NASCAR. I quickly figure out she does not want to go to bed just yet and she is pulling out the ‘cuddle with Daddy and watch NASCAR’ card. Man is she the best daddy manipulator out there or what?
Anyway, I readily agree with her to let her watch the end of the race with me, or until the ‘evil Mommy’ comes along and forces her to go to bed - “which ever happens first,” I explain.
Those of you who know, you can’t pass up cuddle time when it is being offered because it is offered so infrequently as the kids get older. You’ve got to take it when you can get it.
I ask her which car does she want to win and she promptly replies, “The white one”.
That would be Brad Keselowski’s #88 Navy ride she was pointing at.
“Not the yellow one?” I ask remembering she picked the yellow truck because it was “yellooow”.
“OK, the yellow one then,” she replies with a bit of discouragement in her voice.
I then quickly say to her, “Don’t pick the yellow one because I spoke about it, pick what you want.” I then add, “Besides the white car has the same number as the yellow truck you picked to win the last time.”
“Really?” she inquires. Her face is looking up at me asking, “Don’t kid me, this is serious business you know”.
“Yep”, I say. “See the two 8’s on the side of the car? Just like the truck, remember?”
“Just like the truck,” she echoes. “The white car will win,” she then states.
Just then the ‘evil Mommy’ emerges from the bowels of the hell we call our son’s room - he doesn’t like to clean it up and we refuse to do it either. Have you ever gone to war with a 7 year old about toys on the floor? It isn’t pretty. I think we are starting to win though, he can’t find his DS games and is starting to systematically look for them in his junk pile and is cleaning up in the process.
“Why are you still up?” my wife says in her best hallow sweet voice that is only meant to fool the kids and stab husbands in the neck. Don’t forget the icicle ‘evil Mommy’ stare too. Ugh.
My daughter then slides off of me and starts to climb the stairs. I follow with my tail between my legs. I’ll remove the sharp object stuck in my neck once I’m upstairs.
Once my angel in tucked in I tell her that I will watch the rest of the race and let her know who won in the morning.
“It’ll be the white car,” she says with that certainty I wrote about previously that is exclusive only to three year olds and used car salesmen.
I then quietly sulk back down the stairs trying to avoid the ‘evil Mommy’ in the process.
I’m not that fortunate, she is there and worse yet, she still has ‘the look’ going on.
I’m dead. I’m deader than road kill.
My only defense is to pull out the ‘it was free cuddle time’ card, and hope it plays well on the innate nurturer quality contained in most mothers.
It worked. Quite nicely I might add.
The ‘evil Mommy’ then disappears and I’m left with the person that I married; my beautiful wife.
We then sit down and catch the end of the race together.
I then quickly fill-in my wife about my daughter’s choice of winner, just as Brad is staring to pick them off.
Brad then wins and we are left sitting in awe of my daughter.
The next morning I told my daughter that the white car had won, and she replied, “I know.”
“Just how did you know?” I ask.
“Because I picked it to win,” she states in a matter-of-fact tone.
If this keeps up I’m going to start getting her to pick the lotto numbers for now on.
Visit 1800blogger to see all of our industry leading blogs.
