Some thoughts on seeing this laid out so neatly on the kitchen table:
1. What the…
2. Who in the world…
3. Why?
4. Is this the same tie…
5. Those are some really straight cutting lines.
This morning, twin B came downstairs to breakfast wearing this tie. It looked humorously out-of-place with his skin-tight pajama pants and blue-striped pajama shirt.
It all got even more humorous when he opened his mouth.
“I can’t get this off, Daddy,” he said.
“You know you’re not supposed to get into your ties,” I reminded him.
He looked at me for a minute and then turned to his daddy. “Can you get it off for me?” he said.
Husband knelt down beside him. “I can,” he said. “But you shouldn’t play with your ties.”
“Okay,” B said, like he really meant it.
Husband tried for several minutes, because he’s a very patient, persistent person, to get the tie off. He tried unclasping it. He tried slipping it over B’s head (which was about fifteen times bigger than the neck strap). He tried unclasping it again.
“Wow. It really is stuck,” he said. “Want to try?” He turned to me.
Not really. But I did, anyway. I spent fewer minutes on the task than he did, because I’d already seen him fail, and I’m not as persistent when it’s a losing battle. I tried unclasping it and then slipping it over B’s head and then unclasping it again.
“Guess we’ll have to cut it,” I said.
“I don’t want to cut it,” Husband said. “It’s a perfectly good tie. I’ll just get it back over his head.”
Husband wrestled that thing for half an hour. B’s lips were all squished and then his nose was squished and then his eyes and eyebrows were squished while the tie inched its way up. He looked pretty traumatized when it was all said and done. Husband comforted him, while I draped the tie over the banister so I’d remember to take it back upstairs when I went up to settle everyone for naps.
Of course I forgot, because who has a brain when they’re raising children?
Poor perfectly good tie. The next time we saw it, this is what it looked like. All that work and traumatizing for absolutely nothing. We had to throw it away anyway.
Yet another of the ironies of parenting.
