The Most Embarrassing Parents Ever to Have Walked the Earth
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Photo: xJasonRogersx / Creative Commons
My husband and I often ask ourselves, "How can we expect to raise a poised, well-behaved daughter when we act like nine year olds ourselves?"
Here are examples of our behavior:
We give each other raspberries about 20 to 30 times a day. This is currently right up our one-year-old daughter's alley, since she would be giving raspberries whether we did or not. However, I'm starting to worry that the example my husband and I are providing will cause her to think raspberries are a sustained and legitimate part of human communication, or potentially part of the English language.
Best Game Ever
We play a game called Footie Facey, which we are convinced is the most fun game in the universe. This game is not recommended if you are pregnant, in any way physically fragile, or easily insulted by being slapped in the face by someone else's foot. When we told my older brother - the king of roughhousing - about this game, he was horrified. So it's definitely not for everyone.
Here's how you play: recline on the couch with your heads at opposite ends and your legs and feet comingled in the middle. The goal is to touch the other person's face with your foot, while simultaneously preventing him from doing the same to you. Whoever touches his or her foot to the other's face first wins that round.
There are no rules. You can even leap up off the couch to pursue Footy Faceying the other if things get too exciting. The only suggestion is that the foot-to-face contact is reasonably gentle. This game isn't about kicking the other person in the face, just about making brushing contact.
Lately we've been using the baby to further the Footie Facey agenda by holding her and applying her foot to the unwitting victim's face. We've found that using her as a human shield merely serves to encumber the person holding the baby so that he is more easily Footie Faced.
Name Calling: Now for Adults!
We also call each other names. Here's an example. The hubby and I were cleaning up after dinner, which consisted of tacos made with ground beef. The hubby was scraping the leftover beef into the sink garbage disposal, but the disposal wasn't turned on.
I said, "You better turn on the disposal, or we're going to have a meat clog in the sink."
The Hubby said, "You're a meat clog."
Me: "No, you're a meat clog.
The Hubby: "No, you.
Me: "No, you."
And so on. This happens at least five times a day with any random word-or-phrase-turned insult.
I have the feeling that this is going to be a super-fun environment for our daughter until she's about 10 years old, at which time we will become the most embarrassing parents ever to have walked the earth. That sounds like a great title, if you ask me. I'll take it.
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