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Sunday, November 25, 2007
Fighting dirty
Me (to my 4-year-old son): "Yonah, I thought Grandma already asked you to stop banging your car into the wall".
Yonah: [ignores me and continues driving his toy car into the freshly painted wall of my parents living-room]
Me [slightly louder]: "Yonah, are you listening to Abba? I want you to stop that!"
Yonah: [continues to ignore me and gleefully crashes his toy Porsche into the wall yet again.]
Me [sharply]: "YONAH! LOOK AT ME... I'M TALKING TO YOU!!!"
Yonah: [startled, stops what he's doing and looks up at me with big, baby Harp Seal eyes]
Me: "Did you hear me ask you to stop doing that?"
Yonah [lower lip trembling, he hides the little car behind his back]: "Yes Abba."
Me: "If you heard me then why didn't you stop doing it?!"
Yonah [bursts into tears and throws himself into a fierce bear hug against my leg]: "Because I looooove you Abba!! Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!"
My first inkling that this might be an extremely unfair tactic on Yonah's part was that in a millisecond I went from being mildly annoyed that he might be marking up the wall in my parents new apartment, to feeling his heavy sobs and the wet tears soaking through my pants... and being perfectly willing to burn down their apartment if he'd asked me to.
I think this is what they call 'fighting dirty'.
Posted by David Bogner on November 25, 2007 | Permalink
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They are so manipulative and know exactly when to use their weapons against us...
That being said, why didn't you whip out your owner's manual and ask him "what kind of face Abba has?" It seemed to work in other situations...
Posted by: Baila | Nov 25, 2007 1:49:28 PM
Tee, hee! And you think I'm the softie......[chuckling]
Posted by: zahava | Nov 25, 2007 2:12:13 PM
Since my wife and I have various levels of deafness, a common question we are often asked is if our girls are hearing or deaf. They have what we call "selective hearing." For example, if we were to say "Who wants ice cream" we'd have skid marks on the floor as they come barreling in. However if we say "Clean up the floor," we'd have better results if we asked the wall to clean up the floor. My youngest employs the same technique as Yonah, giving the big heaving sobs if my voice raises over a certain dB threshold. They use guilt very well. Ugh!!
Posted by: JDMDad | Nov 25, 2007 5:15:45 PM
Hehe. I think that Yonah's tactic was banned under the Geneva Conventions. There's no defense to that kind of fighting, neh? ;)
Posted by: matlabfreak | Nov 25, 2007 5:38:24 PM
I think there might be more to it than this. Here's an alternate guess: he blurted out exactly what he was thinking. But what connects the "not listening" and the banging with that? That's what you have to ask him about if he still remembers. What if he had a gripe against grandma on your behalf? Or better, the new apartment? Just ask him for us. Just sayin' :)
Posted by: Seattle | Nov 25, 2007 11:25:51 PM
i definitely remember being so young that Yonah made complete sense... :-P
never tried the tears-on-leg trick, though, as far as i know.
Posted by: Steg (dos iz nit der šteg) | Nov 26, 2007 2:01:05 AM
Give that manipulative nephew of mine a great big hug and kiss!
Posted by: Val | Nov 26, 2007 2:30:07 AM
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