Infinite Monkey

To add a story that made *me* burst out laughing: Our neighbor had told Dr Nik, 4 years old at that time, that she was taught as a kid that thunder was God telling off the children who had been bad.

Some weeks later, a thunderstorm was coming up. All of a sudden, Dr Nik litarally jumped up, rushed to the balcony, shook his fist towards the sky and yelled "Go away you stupid God, I *have* been good!"

He couldn't see me laugh, though, I was still in the living room. ;)

Start playing poker. Being able to "poker face" has many uses in life.

Actually, only parents are allowed to give timeouts, and only to their own children. Sometimes to their children's playmates and such. Unfortunately, parenthood doesn't confer the right to give random other people timeouts. :(

It wouldn't help to give RevMike a time-out. It only gives him time to plot and plan.

Cheers,

The Irreverent Keri (Bride of RevMike)

If only that were true.

Yesterday I took the kids to McD's (pardon, "McCafé") for lunch. After we ate, since the kids finished their lunches (which is harder than you think -- Gloriana in particular barely eats sometimes) I got them each a small milkshake, and we sat at a table facing the glass outside wall. A family of four was sitting outside -- and the son, who was probably seven or so, was running around with a pacifier in his mouth and generally being obnoxious to anyone nearby, including repeatedly going in and out the door by us, slamming it each time he went through, and whenever inside, he'd deliberaly screech his shoes on the floor as much as possible, gloating as everyone glared at him. Naturally the parents did nothing, even found this amusing.

For the grown-up version, earlier while we were eating, we were sitting outside under a parasol when it started to rain. Our table had a chair free, and pretty soon a dude showed up with a cup of coffee in his hand and asked if he could sit there so he wouldn't get rained on. Whatever, go ahead, dude. So he sat there sipping his coffee...and proceeded to light up a cigarette and start puffing.

I growled that sitting at our table was OK, but smoking right next to my kids was not. He lamely protested that he was blowing the smoke the other way. I just glowered at him and he took the hint.

(Slight bonus, though. The kids were impressed by the fact that this smoker had exactly two teeth left, both of which were clinging on for dear life. Nice negative example to set for them as they asked me why he was smoking...)

And to round out the trifecta of assholes yesterday, at church a new guy and his wife showed up rather late for the service and barged in (as they nearly always do on the occasions they show up), were chatting loudly throughout the service, and were both actively egging on the kids there to misbehave and ignore their parents' attempts to get them to settle down.

Thus I would really like to have the power of unlimited time-out distribution, age regardless.

Cheers,

Ethelred

As punishment for bad behavior or reward for good?