The Headbutt

“You taught our Daughter to head butt?!” Hossmom says somewhat accusingly.

“Sure I did” I say “How great is that!”

“It’s not great.” She says

I think this is when she started to get a little mad.

“Why is it not great? Do you realize what this is? She is my Latimer now! We will root and chest bump! We will dog pile the stuffed animals when my teams when! We will shake and open juice in victory celebration and spray each other in the face with it! How is that not great!” I ask

“You are an idiot” She responds

“What? Look, no one else does this with me. This is great I tell you!” I say

“And how ‘great’ do you think it will be when we get a call from daycare saying that our daughter has head butted some poor kid? How great will it be then?” Hossmom says.

“…………..” I have no response

“How ‘great’ do you think it will be when she starts head butting the walls and putting holes in them” Hossmom continues.

“How ‘great’ do you think it will be when she starts head butting the dogs?”

“Well, they probably won’t mind” I say trying to find a way out of this hole.

“Right, sure.” Hossmom says. “I’m sure they won’t mind and I’m sure that the doctor won’t mind when we have to take our daughter to the ER for a concussion. I’m sure that they won’t mind it when I say my husband taught our daughter how to head butt.”

There is a possibility that I haven’t thought this one all the way through.

“But I thought you liked it when I teach her stuff. I mean because of me she can rock out in the car, she can say touchdown and offsides, she can give a highfive, she says Beep Beep and mush in the stroller.” This is my strategy at this point—point out all the good funny things that I have taught my daughter.

“None of those things involve bodily injury to our child or to other people” Hossmom says.

“Well, when she says Beep Beep we often run into people. That’s happened before.” That’s it Hossman, lets see if we can twist that logic.

“Then you shouldn’t be teaching her that either.” Hossmom says, cutting off my only avenue of argument.

“But she likes to head butt. In fact, she did it first.” This is all I got left, blame the kid. She will understand when she is older.

“And then you encouraged it. That’s not helping” she says.

Crap

“But it’s fun. It’s how we celebrate the mundane. How can a father’s love for his daughter be so wrong?” I say. I’ve got nothing left, I’m just grasping at straws here.

“I’m sure it’s fun when she gets a big gash in her head and some other poor kid is laid out on the sidewalk with his eyes rolled back.” She says.

“Well, how big is the kid. Is he like her age or is he more like 5 or 6 years old?” I say.

This time she doesn’t even bother to respond. She just gives me the look which means the argument is over and that I have lost.

“At least she won’t be punching anyone anymore.”

Seriously, I should have just shut up.