A Peculiar Pickle Proposal

PlaysWithFire wandered through the living room a few days ago carrying a half eaten pickle.

Me-Hey, give me a bite of that pickle.

PlaysWithFire-I’ll trade you a bite of pickle for an M&M.

Me-How big of a bite?

PlaysWithFire-Shrugs shoulders….I don’t care.

It was at that moment that I should’ve known something was up but instead I took the biggest bite I could manage and passed it back to him, feeling quite proud of my dexterous dickering.  I followed PlaysWithFire into the kitchen to retrieve his M&Ms and he dropped what was left of his pickle onto the floor.

Me-HA-HA!!!  You dropped your pickle!  Way to go!  (I mumbled around my mouthful of pickle).

PlaysWithFire-With another shoulder shrug..…I don’t care, it fell in the driveway a few minutes ago.

As parents, we have gone to great lengths to try and make sure that our boys grow up  to be well-rounded adults.  I like to think that I’m raising my own little redneck renaissance men.  We made sure they watched Baby Einstein videos so they’d have a jumpstart on all the other 4 year olds.  They can count and give greetings in Spanish and know a little sign language.  Megan takes over and makes sure they are exposed to a wider variety of music than my nearly constant loop of Lake Street Dive.

But some things just can’t be taught.  Your kids either have common sense and “snap” to them or they don’t.

Sometimes I worry about what the future holds for my kids.  But standing there with a mouth full of driveway pickle that PlaysWithFire had traded for M&Ms was not one of them.