Subject: Manse Diaries: The Trouble With Cupcakes

Date: Sun, 07 Jun 1998 01:23:16 GMT

From: nospamum@radix.net (MegaLiz)

Organization: MotPU: Where Binary Moodswings are ALWAYS on the Menu

Newsgroups: alt.slack

I'm ready to give up parenting Spunky. Hell, she'll be four in a

couple of days, the important work is done, right? I can just sit back

and OBSERVE from now on because I KNOW that nothing I ever tell her

will penetrate into her logic center. She is that she is and just get

the fuck outta the way.

We went to the hardware store the other day. Ordinarily, I wouldn't

expect to get through it without someone having a head injury, but she

actually REMEMBERED not to touch anything and not to SHTOONCK the

screwdrivers into any sales people. Even when I couldn't see her, but

could only hear the whomp-whomp-whomp of her sneakers in the next

aisle, I felt a warm certainty that she was doing all the right

things--the things that wouldn't get me sued.

Afterward I lathered her with praise while she wriggled with proud

glee in the car seat. Then she reaches out to pet me ever-so gently

and suggest in hushed tones that she would love to buy a cupcake.

"SURE!" I said, "We'll buy two and we can share. One for my Middlest

Angel and one for me, Deal?"

"Deal!"

In spite of the best suggestions of the professionals, the only

behavioral feedback thingies that work with her are sweets and FEAR:

the Snack-or-Smack strategy. Actually I don't have to produce the

snacks or the smacks most of the time, she can sense my intentions.

This time, of course, I had my snack face on. So we found a couple of

hostess cupcakes at another store, and she clutched them to her chest

while I drove home.

I barely had time to settle baby Bobo on the floor before Spunky

started assaulting the wrapper. I eased her into the dining room and

watched her dump the cupcakes upside down onto the table. I didn't

particularly want a cupcake, but I didn't let her know that.

The rest of the proceedings unfolded in a grim and disgusting way. She

crammed the entire frosted top of the cupcake into her mouth for

starters. She moved closer to me, still making frantic glorphing

noises.

Then she tried to speak, "Um wum duh uddah wum!"

"What?" I found that I couldn't back up any further, "Chew, honey.

Don't try to talk--ICK!--just slow down."

"AH WUMT DUH UDDER WUN!" she sprayed me with sticky chocolate crumbs.

"No, the other one is for me, remember." She finally swallowed. I

offered her the lower half of her cupcake. "Besides, you're not even

finished with THIS one."

"I doan want it. I want the udder one!"

"Look. This part has FILLING in it." I tried again. "It's like more

icing inside." She accepted it. If she had a proboscis it would have

flung right out then, but the second half was snuffled and then

crammed into her mouth.

"AH STILL WUMT DUH UDDER WUM!"

"It's for me. We had a deal." At this point nothing in existence could

have persuaded me to give up that cupcake, even though the thought of

EATING it was making me nauseous.

"AH CHANGED MUH MIND!" More crumb spray.

"No, we had a deal, honey. A deal's a deal."

"A deal is a deal...UNLESS I CHANGE MY MIND!"

So, yeah, I ate the hell out of it, but I'm still seriously

considering renting her out as a diet device.

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"Iodinate nouvelle love? Doubtfulness!" the dishwashers articulated.