I was thinking about my parenting the other day, and the family we’ve created, and I realized that my life can, at times, be examples of overused sayings. In mostly good ways.

Take the term “drop of a hat.” I mean, how did this saying come about? One can only imagine it was created in a house like mine, with a very sensitive toddler:

This actually happens in my house on a semi-regular basis, but with the substitution of glasses of milk, food items, dolls, stuffed animals, and important technology in the place of hats. And usually, the item does not magically drop by itself, as in the case of our hat, but is whipped/ hurled/ pitched at the floor. One could imagine, however, given precedence, that a mere hat merely dropping to the floor with no result other than to be on the floor could, indeed, cause a fit of tears. This would not be out of the realm of possibility.

I don’t know why she’s so sensitive. Maybe she gets it from her granddad, who cries at cellular phone commercials.

Another popular cliche in my house is “two wrongs don’t make a right.” I would like to propose that yes, in the minds of my girls, two wrongs do indeed make a right:

If you don’t agree you are welcome to take it up with the Bosses. I am sure, given their mathematical prowess, that three wrongs might make even more right of a right. I know this, personally, because Random and I enjoy taking revenge out on each other.

We also enjoy a goody from time to time. The girls like to make their Need for Goodies obvious and are quite persuasive. Their timing is excellent and their vocal pitch, decibel, and inflection are genius:

It’s definitely true that in the case of my two girls “the squeaky wheel gets the grease.” And then the grease is fucking wiped all over my new couch. I can’t really blame them, though, because I am a giant pain in the butt when I want something and won’t give up until it is in my greedy little paws.

Finally, it’s sweet to point out how much my daughter and my husband resemble one another. One might say they are the “spitting image” of one another. One might make awwww sounds at the Cuteness. One might capitalize Cuteness.

Then one might get a report from daycare because Bo, the smaller half of the Cute Duo, has been spitting on other children like a rabid velociraptor. The daycare ladies might explain to Bo that this is gross, disgusting, nobody likes getting spit on, etc. The mama might explain to Bo that pretty pretty princesses don’t spit, that only yucky old men spit brown goop.

And yet these are but measly words and do not hold a candle to the awesomeness of the Random Dad, who can disprove those theories with a rousing gather in his throat and a well-aimed goober.

I guess it’s true that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. And we thank our lucky stars there’s not one bad apple in the bunch.