Proud Moments In Parenting History

For every lovely note you get home from your child's teacher expounding on their intellectual gift and the compliments you get paid by random strangers about how well your child is behaved, I guarantee that you will have at least twice as many moments when you have the urge to walk away from you child in public while whistling a tune and asking people "Have you seen this child's parents?" You won't do it of course. You will want to though.

I have had so many of these moments that has sort of become a running joke, or at least a joke that can be shared amongst friends. These incidents have nicknames such as The McDonalds incident. Well on Sunday, we had another "incident".

Nearly every Sunday my husband's dad calls us on Skype. It is nice to be able to see him and keep up with what is going on back home. After he had finished talking to The Man, he asked to talk to LaLa. I went back to my bedroom where she was watching TV, in her knickers of course, told her to put on a shirt and go talk to her grandfather. Well, she was having none of it. She complained the whole time I was making her put a shirt on and then when she got to the kitchen table to talk to her grandfather she was in rare form. At first, she was just sassy; giving short one word answers. The next thing I know, she is sitting there with her shirt above her head ala Mardi Gras.

Me- "LaLa, put your shirt down!!"

She puts her shirt down and starts making faces at the webcam.

Father in Law- "what are you? a nudist?"
LaLa- I'm a nudist! I'm a nudist!

She pulls her shirt back up!

Now at this point, I can just see my husband dying a bit inside, my mother in law is dying laughing and saying "you're gonna have your hands full with that one" and I am wanting to melt straight into the floor. My husband finally has had enough and tells La to go watch TV again, which is exactly what she was aiming for. Then we get back on Skype and apologize to his dad and step mom. When we ended the conversation my husband and I looked at each other and I gave him that look that says "Do you think the hospital has return policies?". He just shook his head no.

Moral of the story- If LaLa doesn't want to talk on Skype to her grandfather, don't force the issue. She will make you pay for it.