They were good boys daddy

You always hear that kids say the darndest things, but until you have a little one chattering in the house you really have no idea.  I love my Alfred, but he has...shall we say colorful?...language.  He's always saying things that leaving me wishing that the children in my life weren't quite so observant. A recent occurrence comes to mind.  We have two Boston terriers, they can be very sweet, but we haven't been the strictest of doggie parents, so they were a little (read: a LOT) on the misbehaved side.  I say "were" because we finally admitted that we needed help and sent them over to Annemarie at icarek9.com, and they're doing a whole lot better now.  But before Annemarie stepped in and improved our lives, you would often hear Alfred saying, "Herkie, if you don't stop barking, I'm going to send you to a Chinese restaurant."  He was being facetious of course, we (read: I) love Chinese food, and we eat it several times a month.  I love Chinese food so much that, I even learned to make Char Siu Bao, sesame balls, and sweet sticky rice with Chinese sausage when we moved too far from my favorite dim sum restaurant to go there every week, and we do not for a minute believe that we are eating dog.  However, when faced with a dog with an incredibly obnoxious barking problem, you get frustrated.  You say things you don't mean, and, apparently, that particular phrase was uttered in the presence of my twin nieces one too many times.  My sister and my mother share my love of that particular cuisine, and when they tried a new restaurant with the girls in tow, how could they know it was a mistake to tell them it was Chinese.  Well, that's not completely true, there was one event that could have been read as foreshadowing the unfortunate episode at the restaurant.  Jordan was playing with a stuffed toy dog, and Alyssa became concerned with it appeared that her darling daughter was pretending to saw the dog in half.  When she asked the girl what she was doing, the immediate response was, "I'm making Chinese food!"  Perhaps she should have known then that their next encounter with General Tso would not be a pleasant one.  Unfortunately for my sister, she didn't think about that stuffed dog before she brought the girls into the restaurant. The cook didn't stand a chance.  They wouldn't take a bite of anything, exclaiming, "That's disgusting!"  My poor embarrassed mother and sister retreated with their food in to go boxes.

Lilah helped to get Alfred back, though.  Like any red-blooded Cuban father, Alfred sees himself as a fierce defender of our girls, especially from boys.  So, you can imagine his discomfort when he picked up Lilah from my parent's house after a day spent with my father and sister.  Like a good daddy, he asked her what she did during the day.  Apparently, the day wasn't interesting enough, so she made up a whole list of activities that they had done.  "We went to the gym, and I played with toys, and I played with my friends." 

Naturally, Alfred asked her, "Who are your friends, honey?"  Lilah didn't miss a beat before saying, "Boys!"  Seeing Alfred's face, she said, "Don't worry Daddy, they were good boys."