Who would've thought my little boy would be a walking instruction manual! Other parents rely on sweet talk to handle their kids, but I have to rely on his “guidance.” At my first parent-teacher meeting, my palms were sweating with nerves. The kid slipped me a note: “Take a deep breath and imagine the audience is a bunch of pumpkins.” Then I got so worked up that I knocked over a chair. The way he covered his face and sighed made him look just like my homeroom teacher!
Helping out at the bakery is an even bigger public embarrassment. I whipped the cream into a “disaster scene,” while he took notes in a little notebook and shook his head. “Overwhipped. Grainy texture. A violation of the laws of baking thermodynamics.” I tried to secretly buy his favorite dinosaur cookies to win him over, but, would you believe it, he gave me a whole lecture on “Household Consumer Economics,” saying it was an impulse purchase and a violation of our family rules!
Yet this little grown-up, who says “according to scientific research” all day long, brings over his piggy bank when the bakery is struggling and says, “This is my emergency fund.” When I hit a creative block with my painting, he uses dinosaur evolution to explain how to find inspiration. Now I get it: having such a thoughtful, clever “little boss” means that even if I'm kept firmly in line every day, it's still the happiest “trouble” of my life!
