Discipline

I hate to admit it, but I am the disciplinarian in my house. I am the one to review the homework, I am the one to address what is appropriate for school and what is not, I decide when the laughter is over and when it can resume, I decide who gets T.V. taken away, I decide who gets a colored drink in my minivan... I am the one to... yes, my friends...suck the fun out of everything. This is a hard job, but someone has to do it. Dad (dutch) is a god in the eyes of my children because I am the "giver" of discipline. He is the "fun guy". Just tonight, we had such a collision. It was pizza night. I decided it would be nice to distribute breadsticks in the car with the rule that no one can DIP into sauce in the car... if dipping is desired, one must wait until we get home. Well, then that rule is "stretched" by Dad. He dips a breadstick once for the child with the stipulation that he eat it right away. The child licks the dip off and instead of asking for more dip, he gives the dry, dipless breadstick to his sister. The sister gladly scarfs down any remnant of a breadstick. Now, the dip wisher asks for more. There are NO more breadsticks to dip and only a little dip left. The child continues to ask for the dip over and over and over and over and over (you get the idea) until Dad (who is engrossed in listening to the Penguin game on the radio) finally flips. Mom has tried to explain that the rule was already broken by the allowance of dip... and now anymore dip would have to wait until we reach home. Now the child is completely unglued and so is dad. This is a frustrating occurance for Mom, because yet again, she appears to be the "bad parent" although the "badness" lies in the hands of the spineless, penguin listening, overexaggerating father figure.
So yes... The fun of distributing breadsticks in the car was completely sucked out and never to be revived. Just like the loop in a "crazy straw" the dipping sauce loops the loop and disappears forever!!