Daddy's Fish BowlA Clear View Of A Father's Family Experiences

Most elderly people are set in their ways and feel that they’ve seen and done enough throughout their lifetime to know everything about, well, EVERYTHING.  Sometimes when I think about Ty, I compare him to the elderly.  Tricking this kid is like trying to fool your Grandmother.  If you told your Grandmother (or Ty) that the sky was going to fall, you’ll probably hear something along the lines of “child please, you ain’t fooling nobody”.  Tell the average kid the same thing and they would believe you.  I was that average kid; anything my parents said was gospel.  I mean seriously, I didn’t even try Chinese food until college because I knew in my heart that it was dog or cat meat.  Why did I know this?  Because my parents said so!  Ty on the other hand isn’t so gullible; you’ll have to answer 21 questions before your statement is even considered to be truthful.

These are the circumstances that I have to deal with.  Whether it be a true or false statement that I’m sharing with Ty, you better believe that I’ll need to back up what I’m saying with fact on top of fact.  Honestly, I blame “Batman”, there’s no one else who could be responsible.  Ty loves watching Batman, it’s currently his favorite cartoon & he has all but abandoned playtime on the Wii in order to play “Lego Batman”.  You may be asking why I’m fingering Batman for Ty’s inability to take a statement at face value.  It’s because Batman is like the ultimate detective, he searches for clues, questions bad guys, and finds the truth regardless of the situation.  Ty loves Batman, so obviously he wants to be like him; which leads me to believe that super detective Batman is the reason I have such a difficult time convincing my son that certain things are true.  You don’t think my hypothesis is accurate?  Well let’s take a look at exhibit A: The Great Deodorant Debate

We were all playing in the living room, having a big Royal Rumble Wrestling match and just as I was about to suplex Tre onto Fefe, Ty stops everything and says “Mommy, what’s that white stuff under your arm?”  It was her deodorant, but Ty had never noticed it before.  Usually when Ty asks a question regarding something new, I have a little fun before actually offering a real explanation to his question.  This time was no different; before Fefe could answer I blurted out “it’s her skin; her skin is peeling because she’s getting old”.  I don’t know if he had watched a ton of Batman the day before or what, but Ty immediately shot into super sleuth mode.  He didn’t believe me and was bent on proving it.

Fefe told him that it’s not her skin and it was her deodorant, but I couldn’t just let it end there.  I explained to Ty, if that was the case then I should have some white stuff under my arms as well since I use deodorant too.  I showed him that my underarms were as clear as day and I was sure that he would now believe that Fefe’s skin was peeling because she was getting old.  He agreed that my statement was true, but quickly offered a rebuttal: “well maybe you’re not wearing any deodorant today”.  What, are you serious? If I say I’m wearing deodorant, just believe me and end it.  Nope, not this kid.  So he proceeds to go upstairs and get my deodorant so that he can prove I’ll have white stuff under my arms too.  Smart kid, he thought he had me trapped, but mines is clear & Fefe’s is white, so I knew that this would break him.  I put it on and showed him that there was no white stuff.  Positive that I had stumped him, I began to deliver the truthful explanation, but before I could, he tells me that he would be right back.  Now I’m sitting here thinking, what else could he possibly bring to the table?  I’ve shut him down, he’s finished, I’ve successfully tricked him into believing that Mommy was getting old and her skin was falling off.  Wrong Wrong Wrong!

Ty comes back downstairs with Fefe’s deodorant this time and says: “look, they’re different so that’s why Mommy has white stuff under her arms and you don’t”.  Shocked that he would go to such lengths, I say that it doesn’t matter, deodorant is deodorant, they all work the same.  I swear that he must have been channeling the Batman spirit because this kid, a 4 yr old kid at that, proceeds to run both of our deodorants over a piece of construction paper to prove that one leaves a white residue and the other doesn’t. 

I was left sitting there like WTF, where did you come from?  Have you been watching the latest “Right Guard” commercials or something?  What 4 yr old kid knows to do something like that?  It was awesome, my son successfully proved his case by using logic and experimentation.  Being a scientist myself, I was proud!  You typically won’t ever hear me sing the praises of a cartoon, especially with the whole “cartoons make your kids dumb” argument going on.  But in this case, thank you Batman.  Thank you for showing my child how to challenge what doesn’t seem right.  Because of Batman, Ty probably won’t have to wait until college to experience the joy of great Chinese food.