Boy only listens when it benefits him

So we stop to get Ice Cream at about 6 o'clock at night. Yes, this will spoil everyone's dinner, but we're on vacation and it's a beautiful night. We walked about 2 miles on a jetty cutting right through the ocean, me with girl strapped to my back in one of those little kid backpack things. They're awesome, by the way, I highly recommend. Anyway, we're all pretty tired, Girl is sound asleep in the back of the car. We get our ice cream in shifts. I take boy first. He gets a cup of moose tracks. I get a blueberry cone. Yes, I'm lame, I don't get the flashy flavors. We go back to the car and Mommy goes to get her ice cream. A group of about 10 people had formed behind Boy and myself, so I figured Mommy had a wait. The girl at the counter had efficiency issues. Boy pounds his cup of Moose Tracks. We like to share, so that means he also eats a bunch of mine. We're both finished by the time Mommy comes back. She eats most of her cone and we get in the car. A few minutes later, Boy decides it's time for Mommy to share. "Just a little taste," he says. "I won't even eat any of the cone. You're not sharing. You need to share." Throwing it right back in our faces, he is. This goes on for a good 5 or 10 minutes. Mommy has a limit. She hands him the cone. Within about 10 seconds I hear a crunch. That little liar. He goes to town on the thing, claiming he's entitled. I manage to snatch the last little bit of cone with the liquid chocolate ice cream soup in the bottom from his grubby little hands for Mommy. The chivalrous gentleman I am. Mommy's pretty disgusted at this point. She eats it. He cries for 10 minutes. As if I did something wrong. "Daddy hurt my feelings. Daddy grabbed. You shouldn't grab." I'm not sure if I'm sorry I grabbed or if I'm sorry we didn't stop at a second ice cream stand and eat an entire ice cream cone in front of him and not offer him any of it while I commented how the ice cream was better than the ice cream at the first ice cream stand.

Vomit Part II: Cookies and cream

We like to go to Maine every summer for a week. We rent a house on a little cove on the water about midway up the coast. We usually go one of the weeks at the end of July. The rental runs from Saturday to Saturday. I like to pack and gas the car up the night before and hit the road bright and early. Mommy likes to make sure we take more than we really need. I don't mind because I enjoy the challenge of packing the car. I'm very anal about it. Since I was a little I've loved the whole vacation experience of getting the most out of the trip. Get up with the sun and go. Mommy and children humor me. One of my concessions (let's be honest, I love it too) is to stop at Dunkin' Donuts on the way. I'm a medium with milk and one sugar. Iced in the summer. Mommy likes something flavored. I can never remember so I make her write it down. Boy gets munchkins and milk. A trip like this, I get him the big box, not the bag with 4 in it. He loves the chocolate. Girl is sound asleep. So here we are, the Griswolds, making our annual trek to Maine. Enjoying a hot summer day with my coffee finished and road tunes playing. Sun burning the left side of my body. Boy has picked out all the chocolate munchkins. Me, the glazed. time passes. The sounds start. A cough. A sniffle. Another cough. "Crap". A wretch. 80 mph on the highway. Wave 1: a splatter. More of a volcano down his chest than a spray against the seat. Thick. Chocolate munchkins + milk = cookies and cream. Wave 2: thicker. "Crap". So we pull over on the side of the highway. Strip the boy down. Strip the seat fabric down. Now is where the meticulous car packing comes in. Yes we have a change of clothes & wipes. Where are they? Yes, at the bottom. Boy half-naked on the side of a highway. Our entire vacation packing strewn over the grass beside the breakdown lane. The rest of the ride? Cookies and cream.