This Parent Could Use an Avatar

My kids were making art using pictures they'd cut out from magazines and pasted onto paper. They created some really neat collages--at first.

Then my five-year-old daughter, Belle, cut out a shampoo ad depicting several naked women strategically covering each other with appendages and bottles of conditioner. "Let's put it on the fridge!" she said.

To which her mommy responded, "Um, NO."

Not to be outdone, my three-year-old son cut out a picture of a woman in the shower from the thighs down. "Here Daddy, you can put this up in your office at work!" So much for our health insurance.

Belle pointed to a picture of Malificent, the evil queen from Sleeping Beauty:

Belle said, "Her skin is green because she never bathes." Clearly, that shampoo ad is working.

I need an advertisement that encourages my children to not fight. Don't get me wrong, they usually play very nicely. But they're also quite skilled at "pushing the right buttons" to annoy the hell out of each other when they get the itch.

Case in point: Belle bossed Johnny around incessantly on how to play with his toys and Johnny sighed, rolled with it and said, "OK, Belle." Eventually, he couldn't take the bossing any longer. Belle screamed, "Daddy, Daddy!" When I arrived in the bedroom, Johnny was sitting on her back, arms folded, grinning.

Of course, this isn't new. When I was a kid, my big brother used to sit on my back, rub my face in the carpet and giggle. He called the game, "Chris: Meet the Floor." We'd get reacquainted nightly.

Some days--when the kids are fighting, shoving random objects in the toaster and eating the leftover pizza only to put the crust and Tupperware back in the fridge--you feel like an Avatar stuck in Pandora:

You're jumpy, your butt hurts and it feels like the movie will never end.

These are the types of days when you put your children to bed early and almost immediately fall asleep. Before bed, Belle said, "This is the longest day of my life."

I said, "Why?"

She said, "Because it's the first day I've noticed."