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This following list was compiled by my wife Stevie, myself, and a few other guilty parties whose names will be protected until my death. They know who they are, and they don't feel guilty either.
1. I've been trying to use up the gross generic peanut butter that we bought a while ago. When we make sandwiches, the kids get generic. I get the brand names. I'm choosy ... and selfish.
2. If we are at the end of a loaf of bread, the kids always get the butt. They think it is the "special" piece.
3. I eat the filling out of Oreos and give my son the gross cookie part.
4. When the kids ask for more food after dinner, I tell them that food before bed gives them nightmares. The second their heads hit the pillow, I make a second dinner - an icecream dinner. I sleep like a rock.
5. We take batteries out of annoying toys and say that they are broken. Then when we put the batteries back in, we act like we are toy-fixing gods. LOVE US, FOR WE HAVE FIXED YOUR TOY!
6. If someone at a party gives my kids juice, I sneak it away and water it down until the only thing juicy about it is the colour. If my kids ever taste real juice their heads may explode.
7. I steal my son's favorite toys so he has to sit with me.
8. I eat all the good Halloween candy. My kids are unaware of the existence of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.
9. I stare at her while she sleeps.
10. I have a special signal that tells my husband to unplug the wireless modem. Then I pretend to be really sad when we can't watch Winnie the Pooh on Netflix for the 3rd time that day.
11. I have avoided teaching my kids about clocks and time just so I can put them to bed at 6pm in the winter. I am hoping this lasts until their early teens.
12. I haven't told my daughter that she writes the letter J backwards every time, because I secretly don't want her to stop doing it. Ever.
13. I tell my kid Santa exists. Not because I like having them believe in magic and giving them presents, but because I find it convenient to have a made-up, mythological being whose arbitrary judgment of right and wrong can be used to manage my children's behaviour.
14. I locked my kids in my car once. It was cold outside and the car was running with the heater on, so I just hung out and waved at them through the window for a half an hour while we waited for the locksmith to get there.
15. When I am mad at my daughter, I fart on the way out of her room after putting her to bed.
16. Sometimes I will mess up the last line of the lullaby and tell her that it didn't count, just so I can sing one more song with her.
17. I fell asleep with a Sharpie marker in my hand and it got all over the microfibeer couch. I tell everyone it was my 3-year-old.
18. On occasion, when playing pretend with my son, I just tell him that my pretend character is pretending to take a nap. Batman takes a lot of naps in our house.
19. When our kid was little, we use to clap and cheer when he took a tumble. We found that if we gasped and ran to him he cried, but if we cheered he bounced back up, proud of the show he put on. Now he has no fear and we have created a monster.
20. I love my kids too much. Like way too much. The kind of love that is like an open wound. The kind of love that is like an exposed nerve. I am 100 per cent vulnerable. My kids could destroy me, and sometimes I act just a little more pissed than I need to be just to throw them off from the truth. The truth is that they win even when they don't know they are winning. And the truth is that I'm strangely okay with it.
An earlier version of this post appeared on John Kinnear's personal blog, Ask Your Dad. You can also find him trying to be funny on Facebook.