As parents, we lose.

I try not to tell too many kid stories. I know they get annoying for people without kids. Hell, I have two kids and I get annoyed by them. Just about the only thing worse is baby talk. I accept it some from toddlers, but from adults I really can't stand it. But here are a couple of recent anecdotes for those that do like kid stories.

My 4-year old calls both of his grandmothers "Wa Wa". He actually used to call them "grandma" and then for some reason switched it to Wa Wa. No idea why. It sounds like baby talk so I kind of hate it but I like the fact that he came up with a name for them on his own and there's no veering him away from the name. The other day I asked him why he calls his grandmas "Wa Wa". He pondered it for a moment, then said, "Because they are old, drink coffee and have PaPas."

If we're keeping score of who wins the battles in our house, I feel fairly certain my 4-year old is ahead.

Here is just one small example of how I know this to be true.

Last night Cody (the 4 year old) wanted some yogurt to go with his dinner. Normally I buy a case of the strawberry and blueberry Yoplait yogurt, but Cody and I end up arguing over the blueberry ones as they are our favorite and the hubby gets stuck with the strawberry. So I recently bought a large carton of blueberry yogurt. Cody was thrilled to see such a large container of blueberry yogurt and wanted to dig into it with a spoon. Mike (the hubby) started to dish some of the yogurt out into a small bowl. Cody started having a meltdown claiming the small bowl was too small. Mike, certain our very tiny little boy that normally eats all of 400 calories a day, would never eat that much and made Cody a deal - if Cody would eat all the yogurt in the bowl, he would buy him a present. Cody reluctantly agreed - preferring to have the entire carton instead but greedy enough to try just about anything for a present. I think you can guess what happened - Cody ate all the yogurt in the bowl. No problem. Fail #1.

The promise of a present was actually two-fold. Mike had to run some errands and was going to take Cody with him and leave me with the 1 year old at home. As I have raised two mama's boys they have to be bribed to leave me. I'm not sure what I have done to create these mama's boys. I'm trying to undo my handy work, but have only made bigger mama's boys. I had hoped the guarnatee of a present from the store would be more than enough to secure an evening of just entertaining one little boy and not two, but instead Cody told Mike to pick something out for him and he'd wait for it until Mike got home. Fail #2.