Miles is getting increasingly good at playing mind games with us, learning our weaknesses and exploiting them in ways that are, frankly, horrifying considering he’s only three. His primary tactic with me, which would surely get under my skin were it true, is exemplified by this recent exchange.
I was introducing Miles to the Disney short “Lambert the Sheepish Lion,” a childhood favorite of mine, and from the outset he had questions.
“What’s the lion’s name?”
“Lambert.”
“And what’s all the sheeps’ names?”
“I don’t know all the sheeps’ names.”
And HERE’S where he made the deliberate attempt to get to me:
“Well MOMMY knows their names…”
I can assure you that mommy in fact does NOT know their names, but this is Miles’s response any time I admit I don’t know something. He’s even tried this with Star Wars characters, for God’s sake, pointing at a random stormtrooper in one of his books and asking me what his name is.
“Well MOMMY knows his name…”
Sure, I’ve got thick enough skin to take this sort of crap from a three-year-old, but how long until he wises up and starts actually applying it to things mommy DOES know more about?
The Perils (& Pride) of Paternity 