Lawyering

by Steve

My daughter and I have this excellent little game that we do. I think that we invented it, so... copyright. It's called lawyering. She came up with the name.

It started one day when we were watching something on Noggin (the best children's content channel on television). Between shows they'll have a band perform a fun little song, maybe a dance. There are several and they're all pretty good. I had a crush on one in particular, Laurie Berkner, for a few years. And "Willie Was A Whale" has cracked its way into my top ten songs of all time. It's on my I-Pod.

There is this one group called The Fresh Beat Band. She likes them a lot. We watched them together a few times. And then, just for fun, I confessed to her that when I was a teenager, I was one of the original members; that I was, in fact, the leader of the original Fresh Beat Band.

Now, of course it was a lie. And I know that it's "frowned upon" to lie to our kids. But this was one that was so outlandish that there is no way that she was going to believe it. I was sure of this.

"Really?" she said. I just looked at her. I was a little disappointed. At least she's cute, I thought. But, finally it clicked.

"You were not," she was very confident.

"Wasn't I?"

I stayed with it, telling her about what a demanding life it was to be a teen sensation, the heartthrob of preschoolers everywhere. I showed her my moves. I told her the line that I was famous for. The line that opened every Fresh Beat show, "Hey Mickey, gimmi a beat!" It was ridiculous. And with every word, even though she was laughing, and she knew that I was teasing her, she became more and more intent on getting me to admit that I was lying.

Now, my kids hate this about me. But I try to turn everything into a brain developing exercise of some sort. So, instead of admitting that I couldn't have been a founding member of The Fresh Beat Band, I told her to prove it.

It went on for months. Randomly timed questions from her; How old was I at the time? What were the other band member's names? Can she call them? She even called my mother to question her. All the while, when I knew she was looking I'd pretend to be working on old Fresh Beat dance routines. I'd talk to her about the good old days on tour. Deflecting her questions and making the story more and more elaborate. It was so much fun.

She finally got me. I forget how. One thing that I said didn't really jibe with something else. I didn't make it easy, I made her work for it, but she stuck with it and she proved her case very definitively. I was proud of her. She's not just cute. More importantly, she was very proud of herself. These "little" accomplishments are only little to us. To her, proving this was one of the biggest issues in her life. And it was one in the win column. Another accomplishment for her confidence to build upon.

Recently I started a new conversation with her.

"You know, I haven't worn a full bodied, purple leotard in quite a while."

"You haven't?"

"Nope. Not since college."

"Why did you wear one in college?"

"It was my uniform. You see, I worked my way through college as a clown's assistant in a traveling circus. I was a dwarf at the time..."