The Von Trapp Children Wash Rocks

When it comes to interacting with young children, there are two types of people in this world: those like my wife and those like me.

Those like my wife telepathically emanate a Pied-Piper-like frequency that transforms kids into good-mannered minions who chant harmonized cleaning songs and collaborate to alphabetically restock the bookshelves in one another’s bedrooms.

Those like me grind their teeth with the same ferocity that tectonic plates shift along fault lines and regret not having picked up another twelver while they were in town.

THANK GOD our kids have their mom.

That being said, individuals like Kick Ass Wife can be a bit sickening. I mean, she just glides in to any chaotic situation and suddenly our kids, who seconds before had been pulling shivs on one another and calling each other poopyhead in three different languages, transform into the goddamn Von Trapp children, flitting around like songbirds with disproportionately large heads while playing together in a manner that can only be described as docile and supportive, not unlike an Amish game of Twister.

Case in point: we’re camping in the mountains. The kids are racing around with spears I had made for them, which in hindsight doesn’t seem like a terrific idea, but I figured a little good-natured sibling skewering would keep them occupied.

And it would have. But the kids just had to play right in camp, chasing one another round and round the fire pit even though there were literally square miles of forest in every direction that were perfectly fit for impaling.

And let me tell you, sharp, pointy objects really ratchet up the volume level.

So Kick Ass Wife, hearing my jaw clenching, floats in under a golden ray shining down from the heavens and calmly says to the marauding swarm, “Do you want to wash some rocks?”

Cue the scratching-record sound.

Do you want to wash some rocks? There is no way in hell they’re going to want to –

“Yeah!”

And guess what? The kids sat and QUIETLY scrubbed and dried and rescrubbed and redried rocks for what seemed like hours, but may have actually only been a six-pack.

I made them spears – with irresponsibly sharp points, I might add – and they dropped them to wash rocks.

No shit.

In fact, they were so totally engrossed in this activity that if I had vomited up an Xbox with a copy of Super Mario Kart they would have done nothing more than shrug and ask for more dish soap. And possibly apple juice.

So you understand why those types of people can be a little nauseating.

But, man, I’m glad one of those people is my wife.