Torture Can Be Fun!

This post also appeared on www.capecodonline.com/blogs in the opinion section of the Cape Cod Times, a division of Ottaway Newspapers, Inc.

OK, so maybe this makes me a bad parent but I don’t care. It was just too funny. Will is very mobile in his walker on wheels. He just glides around the living room on the hardwood floors with reckless abandon. And despite all the toys and stuffed animals and rattles we bought him, the only thing he wants to play with are the newspapers. The obvious problem with that, however, is when he scrunches all of it up in his hands because of the ink. His hands turn black and I’m pretty sure he shouldn’t be ingesting news ink. But when he’s in the stroller he makes a beeline for the newspaper bin. So I concocted a newspaper bin defense system which sounds fancy, but really just consists of our Nintendo Wii box blocking the bin so there’s no way he can maneuver close enough to the newspaper to get them. I kind of thought he’d try once or twice and then give up and go on to greener pastures. But my son is proving more tenacious and determined than I gave him credit for. He’s been trying to figure out a way to get to the newspaper for almost 30 minutes now. His arms are desperately outstretched as his fingertips graze the edges of the paper, just out of reach. The looks of pure frustration and annoyance are just too precious for me to stop him, so I’ve been watching in sick and twisted amusement all this time. And I took a picture for posterity. It’s a little dark because it’s a cell phone camera but you get the point. What a wonderful parent I am…

null