Vegie Smugglers

Re-enactment.

I love those moments where the presence of your children makes you a bigger, braver adult. Like when we got into the car the other morning (already late for school), and Mr M&P started shrieking LIKE A GIRL and bouncing around the car whacking his head, his sister and also kicking me in the shoulder.

More shrieks and squeals. “SPIDER!” was all I could manage to decipher.

Louder. “SPIDER!” With finger pointing. Miss F joined in.

Shrieking, (in unison), “SPIDER!”

Now with both of them bouncing around and a general PANIC setting in, I looked at the medium-sized brown spider and knew that IT WAS UP TO ME TO DO SOMETHING.

I hate those moments. I much prefer to leave myself at the mercy of others, but I’ve found over the years of being a parent that quite often, the buck actually does stop with me.

Worried that the general pandemonium would scare the damn thing off and cause him to scurry somewhere hidden (rendering the car unusable), it occurred to me that not only did I have to do something, but I needed to do something FAST.

Marching around I flung open Mr M&P’s door, leant in and looked for a whacker. For once they hadn’t left a single shoe in the car. So with no weapon to be found, I realised that I was going to have to whack the poor little fella with my hand. Taking a breath and claiming calm I smashed him. Twice.

The shrieks continued, “Ewwwwwwwww!” But the tone had changed. The panic was mixed with a grudging admiration for the awesomeness of their mum.

And I was quite proud of myself. Never, ever would I have done that if the kids weren’t there.

And it occurred to me that quite often they make me into a better person.

And you? What’s a recent feat of awesome that you’ve done on behalf of your kids?

Who says advertising to kids doesn’t work?

I’m thinking of changing my little boy’s name from Mr Meat&Potatoes to TAD. Not Ted, TAD. The. Advertiser’s. Dream.

He came to me the other day and stood slightly closer than usual which implies that he has SOMETHING IMPORTANT to tell me. I looked into his very serious eyes.

“Did you know mummy, that the happiest place on earth just got happier?”
Silence fell between us. Him looking up with wide eyes and a slight slow nod and me, perplexed, trying to place the phrasing, knowing that I’ve heard it before.
“And what place would that be, matey?”
Dramatic pause. Then a whispered reply as we leaned in so close that our heads were nearly touching.
“Disneyland.”
More slow nods.

Those who follow VS on Facebook, will have seen TAD’s drawing of the cricket, complete with the Vodaphone logo. This was funny, and after posting it on Vodaphone’s wall, it won him tickets to the test match and a signed Michael Clarke shirt.

Now I’m wondering if I can get him going on a large scale artwork with the full Disneyland map with a lovely QANTAS plane flying us there. And maybe a little Tiffany’s store down in the corner with a portrait of me, deliriously happy outside. Perhaps I could shop that around social media to the benefit of me my family.

TAD only wears labels.

Seriously though, I’m quite shocked by how much he absorbs from corporate messages that I totally tune out. Perhaps it’s because he usually watches ad-free ABC channels, so when he does see a thrilling 15-second snippet he pays attention? Perhaps in my vigilant anti-commercial stance I’ve done him a disservice and set him up to be the most gullible consumer of all time?

There’s good advice here from Raising Children about how to counteract it all.

Do you have an ad strategy? How gullible trusting are your children?