Backseat Conversations

Riding in the car with my boys

I picked Tom and Huck up from their baby sitter this evening. The sitter informed me the boys dug rocks out of the her yard all day (by choice, we don’t send them to a slave camp). This didn’t seem to tucker them out in the slightest, below are the two rather entertaining conversations they had.

I’m right, right?

Being four and two years old respectively, Tom and Huck are able to learn certain things simultaneously. Presently, my wife and I are trying to teach them their right from their left. This is easy as Huck is normally on the left side of the car, and Tom on the right side, when we’re in my wife’s minivan.

However, the recent addition of a booster seat has made my compact sedan able to house both children in the inverse arrangement.

When pulling out of the sitters neighborhood, I asked the boys which way they’d like to go, as a left or right turn didn’t add too much time to the trip either way.

Both boys pointed to the passenger side, and Huck correctly yelled, “Right!”

“Good job Huck. You’re on the right side.”

“I right.”

“No, I’m right!” Tom responded, indignantly.

“I right. You left.”

This proceeded for a while until we came to a stop light and I could gather myself, and I was out of chuckles. Having a two-year old try to argue his point, correctly I might add, is too entertaining to me.

I explained how Tom sits on the right side of the car in his mother’s car, and on the left side in mine. He proceeded to sulk for the next five minutes.

Stories of assault

Having lost the battle to sit on the correct, or right side of the car, Tom took a different tack to win the car ride, tattling.

“Huck bit me. On the arm. On the shoulder.”

“Huck, is this true.”

Nothing.

“Huuck?!?”

“I bite him.”

“Why did you bite Tom?”

“Because.”

“Because doesn’t work here mister. Why did you bite him?”

“Because I’m mean.”

Well that’s certainly a good reason.

But wait…There’s more

“I bite him because he punch me in belly.”

“NUH UH. Daaaaad, he’s lying. He’s not telling the truth.”

Suuuuuuuuuuuure.

When I told all this to my wife, all she said was, “We don’t pay our sitter enough.”