A Cautionary Tale

We have a friend staying with us while he finishes up his doctorate at UW. His family recently sold their house and moved to an exotic undisclosed European location (Sweden). His Ph.d thesis is on "Phosphorylation of the AMPA Receptor GluR1 Subunit is Required for Synaptic Plasticity and Retention of Spatial Memory" (I didn't even make that up.) He's a wee bit smart. He and his wife have four daughters (yes, the same mom and dad and still happily married) and when Clay and I are faced with parenting conundrums we often think WWMD? (What would Mike Do?) Although this tale's acronym is DDWMD: Don't do what Mike did.

One night while cooking dinner I mentioned (okay complained) to Mike about how tired I was of Goldie dumping her food out on the table when she was done eating. (She does this with Cheerios, rice, noodles- you name it.)

Uh oh... I just realized I've been using our protagonists real name. OK, first names only. Anyway, Mike helped me to feel better about things by telling a story about his eldest daughter, (age 12) who once hurled a wet burrito from Burrito Express at her sister (age 10) who happened to be sitting next to her younger sister (age 8)in their van. The burrito splattered on the younger innocent daughter instead of the intended target. "It was like a burritomobile inside the van." described Mike. One kid was crying, the van was a mess and Mike was absolutely fuming. When they arrived home, his wife heard the mayhem in the garage and saw Mike yanking the B.T. (burrito thrower) by her hair and explaining through clenched teeth that she was going to clean every bit of the van (and the younger sister). The youngest daughter is crying. There is wet veggie spattered all over the inside of the van. The 10 year old is fuming about being caught in the cross fire. And poor Mike gets in trouble with his wife for losing his temper with the girls.
This is EXACTLY why we will NEVER get a mini van.