'Well mannered and nice'

You don't realize how cripplingly ignorant casual onlookers are until you are a parent.

I have had less than a decade of experience with this 'rearing my young' thing, but I...

I should have used a different sentence there. Wipe whatever imagery you have in your brain right now.

I have been a parent since before we had to remove our shoes to fly in an airplane. In that short period of time I've realized that the average not me-or-my-wife person thinks my kids are:

"So well mannered and nice."

It's a compliment. I want my kids to allow me to be in public with my head held high, preferably on my own neck.

When you have your firstborn you take them everywhere you can to show off that yes, you could produce another human. The novelty wears off when the people talking on cellphones give you the dirty look because your child is shrieking in the store aisle.

Eventually you realize that bringing your kids along is like combining both you and your spouse's worst days and then putting that attitude in a package one third your size. And the only place where that mindset would be welcome is in a mob beating or political debate.

Consequently I have laboured to train my children to be considerate and good. And this is where the dichotomy lies, everyone believes I'm a success except for my wife and I.

For instance, last week my older daughter was musing out loud in the next room. You might think my concern was the fact she had begun to talk to herself, but that was until I heard this gem:

"How do I make Daddy die?
Mommy murdered?"

She proceeded to finish her thoughts. Apparently she was toying with alliteration, choosing pleasant word matches for herself and her sister and trying to impress Edgar Allan Poe with the others. Can I sleep soundly at night? Developmental psychology says 'no'.

Ok, if they aren't nice, maybe they are polite, right? Tonight we had a fun game of 'Dora the Explorer UNO'. It's like crazy eights with 50% wild cards.

So in a moment of cunning wit I lean over to my wife and say 'pull this'.

It was my finger. I belched as only a proud father of two can. Then two fingers shot across the table towards my wife begging for them to be pulled.

My older daughter proceeded to chug-alug her peppermint tea in a vain attempt to provide the required ammunition for the proper gaseous rumbling of the esophagus. My younger daughter reduced her IQ by 3 points straining so hard to pass wind that her face turned a deep shade of fuchsia.

That stopped the game for the next 5 minutes while they tried to one-up each other with bodily noises.

I really believe my children are generally well mannered and nice. Kind of like the 'little girl with the little curl', but I would change the rhyme to this:

There was a little girl
with a little curl
right on the fore edge of her scalp

And when she was good
she was very good indeed
but when she is mad call for help!