Monday, April 06, 2009

Toddler 1, Daddy 1

Just in case you're keeping score, Pynchon evened the game.

From the bathroom early this morning, as I fished around my makeup bag looking for my eyeliner, I listened to Pynchon and Munchkin in the midst of their daily, heated, wardrobe negotiation. To give you some context, we consider the negotiations successful if, after protracted struggle, at least two of the three following conditions obtain:

- all the major parts of the body that should be covered are covered
- no one has been materially or mortally injured
- we all wind up no more than 40-60 minutes late for work

So I was surprised to hear Pynchon hold firm on the morning's wardrobe lineup: purple princess shirt with matching socks and the dreaded Auntie Heather Pants. The dreaded Auntie Heather Pants are a gift from--can you guess?--Pynchon's sister Heather. They are a really nice, roomy, cute pair of chinos with an embroidered flower on one leg and adorable useless little pockets just the right size to hold tiny ponies. But if you press them toward Munchkin? She will scream the house down and lash out so violently from all four limbs that we tend at that juncture to just drag her into the middle of her room and let her thrash on the carpet until her rage is spent.

So I was surprised to hear Pynchon deflecting Munchkin's "NO! I don't WANT to wear THESE PANTS" by pressing them upon her once more.

The gambit: "Well, Munchkin, these are not your Auntie Heather Pants. No, we had to throw those away because you didn't like them at all and you did NOT want to wear THOSE pants."

She listened. He continued, conspiratorially: "These are ... Wacky! Khakis!"

Can you believe it? She put them on and sang the Wacky Khaki song for the rest of the day. Huh. And the game is tied at one apiece. I'm impressed.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Surely those kind of tactics deserve more than one point? I'm impressed, very much so!

When I was little I used to throw tantrums if I wasn't allowed to go out in my Thomas the Tank Engine pyjama shorts. The top was really mum's call, but the shorts were not. In any way. I have a picture of me in France, getting some fairly strange looks from French people, in my really attractive bright blue shorts... with trains on them.

Patti said...

I agree - 10 points for Pynchon!

cinnamon gurl said...

Genius! We have the same morning negotiations and the same definition of success here.

Debbie said...

That's fantastic!

I'm in awe and taking notes. We've not had to deal with any clothing issues to date. (knock on wood)

Yes, definitely more than 1 point for Pynchon on that one!

the new girl said...

Oh, SOMEONE drank his caffeine that morning...

Kyla said...

Well played, Pynchon.

Grumpy Momma said...

Hilarious - and I LIKE your definition of success!

kittenpie said...

Impressive. But might not work more than twice, so start stockpiling new versions and twists on that tactic...