LOSING THE BRAIN GAME

OK, now it's getting old. The first few times, it was kinda cute, being outsmarted by my daughter. Now it's just a pain.

It started when she was a couple of years old, and she realized that she could get away with things on technicalities. One I shared in a column a while back was when she approached me at lunch and took a couple of chips off of my plate. She began smacking the chips, showing me the entire process in graphically unnecessarily fashion. I explained to her that she should not chew her food with her mouth open. She responded that she was not chewing her food with her mouth open, but rather MY food.

So we have had numerous debates over the years about whether she should obey the spirit of the law or the letter of the law. She has no idea what that means, but does know that if she can find a loophole, she can get a bag of Cheeto's.

So last week, she was playing with my sister and proceeded to try and climb all over her. While I am like a human rock climbing wall for her, I do know that most people do not like to be scaled by four-year-olds.

"Allie, don't climb on her."

Allie continued to climb.

"Allie - I said DO NOT climb on her."

Allie continued to climb. My sister helped matters by laughing. Laugh = encouragement.

"ALLIE! Did you hear what I said?"

Allie stopped and turned to me. "Yes, I did."

Calling her bluff, I said, "Then what did I say?"

"You said, 'Did you hear what I said?'"

Now, at this point, my sister was laughing harder. My parents were turning to leave so they could go in the other room to laugh. And I was faced with the unfortunate predicament of being forced to refrain from laughing while maintaining my fatherly supervisory role.

More and more these days I find myself in these situations. Sometimes, my daughter will say something like, "Daddy, can I watch 'Strawberry Shortcake'?" I will respond that, no, she cannot, as we are getting ready to eat. A few minutes later, I will try and corral Allie for dinner. And where is she? In the den, watching "Cinderella," which she is quick to point is NOT "Strawberry Shortcake."

Another arguing point that I often find myself in is over the word "stupid." A while back, the word "stupid" was somehow introduced into her vocabulary. While hardly a Sopranoesque profanity, it's still a word my wife and I would rather our child not use, especially when she uses it so horribly wrong sometimes ("Mommy, my milk is stupid").

So we told her that "stupid" was not a word that she was to use. Instead, she should substitute "moronic," "idiotic" or "smart as a towel rack."

Ha! Kidding. Of course, we told her that it was not polite to call names, and that if she didn't like someone, she should do the sensible thing, and subtly undermine their credibility by spreading vicious office rumors that...oh, wait, that's a lesson for when she graduates college.

So we were pretty successful in striking "stupid" from the vocabulary. And then one day, I referred to something as stupid. (I believe it was a referee on TV, which an entirely appropriate use of the word, especially if you watch SEC football.) My daughter responded, "Stupid's a bad word. You shouldn't say that."

"And YOU," I said, "shouldn't tell Daddy what to do."

"But what if you're doing something bad? Like saying 'stupid'?"

At that point, I realized that the only way to combat this was through like logic. "Hey, you just said a bad word. No 'Strawberry Shortcake' for a week." She hardly cared, though, since there's always "Cinderella."