Mason has a stuffed monkey that he affectionately refers to as ‘meey’. Monkey is, to no stretch of the imagination, the most important thing in his life. I remember the day vividly that taught me where I stood on the Dad / monkey pecking order. I get home from a long day at work. Mason is standing in the other room and turns around when he hears the back door shut. A big smile spreads across his face; he opens his arms wide and runs across the kitchen towards me. Exactly what I need, a big hug. I bend over to embrace him. As he races past me, I turn around, and there it is…Monkey. Mason runs over, grabs monkey and gives it MY HUG! Ouch, that stings a little. You may have won this round little monkey, but I’ll get the next one! From that point, I was on a mission to get a hug from Mason before he went to bed.
I start going over my battle plans. I have a little over three hours before Mason goes to bed. I need to get monkey out of the picture. But how? I can’t just take it from him; that would light the fuse on a temper tantrum the neighbors would be talking about for weeks. No, brute force won’t work here. I need a more subtle approach. Then it hits me. Supper will be the perfect opportunity. Mason is not allowed to eat with monkey so I will simply take it upstairs and put it on his bed. Then they will be apart and I can get my hug. Well, it sounded good at the time. Unfortunately, as many things do, it blew up in my face. As I was putting Mason in his high chair, I asked if I could have monkey. “NO!” Uh-oh, Houston, we have a problem. After several minutes of negotiating, I was able to convince Mason to let monkey sit in the chair next to him while he ate. Of course, Mason had to give monkey a big hug before letting me take it. In the infamous words of Homer Simpson, “DO’H!!” Laura was so proud, her husband arguing with a two year old over a stuffed monkey, and LOSING! Round two goes to monkey…
So now I am two hugs behind and time is against me. I have to think big. Force won’t work, supper didn’t work and taking a hug is not the same as being given one, so I think I have only one option left. Bribery. I know a chocolate chip cookie can sometimes cause short term memory loss, ‘monkey who?’. As soon as I walked in with that cookie in my hand, monkey was tossed aside like yesterday's news. HA! I found monkey’s kryptonite! Only now, Mason would not give me a hug because he couldn’t be bothered while eating his cookie.
I learned two things that day, not only do I rank below a stuffed monkey; I also fall below a chocolate chip cookie.
