“These kids just have no idea how good they have it,” I told my husband one morning at breakfast.

“I know,” he concurred. “I wish I’d had us as parents!”

I asked Samantha later that morning, as we were driving to her eye exam, what she thought about our self-proclaimed amazing-ness as parents, and she said, “Well maybe you, but not Dad.”

“What? Why not Dad?” I asked, shocked.

“Well, I mean, he is a good cook. And he is pretty good at teaching art.  But I could do without the jokes.” And so began Samantha’s day-long stream of her own jokes.

The next thing she said was, “Do you find it thrilling to be whizzing across this icy road at dawn?”

Um… what?!

“OK, I mean, do you find it thrilling to be driving the speed limit on this warmish road hours after dawn?”

Uh…

OK…

I told her she reminded me of Jane Penderwick, and she beamed with pride at being compared to a fictional character from a book. (Pretty much any character from any book would do.)

At the eye doctor’s office, she told the doctor she liked her sweater. The doctor replied, “You REALLY can’t see, then, because it’s not even a sweater. It’s just a shirt.”

“Oh, yeah, yeah… I meant I like your shirt.”  (And then she proceeded to not be able to read any lines below the E at the very top of the chart.)

When we got to the optical point of the doctor’s visit, Samantha pointed out (rather loudly in front of the nice lady helping us) that I had a few gray hairs: “Look, Mom. Ya got some gray coming in. Are those new?”

“Yes, erm… Well, you definitely helped me earn those,” I stuttered, trying to laugh off the innocent insult.

“Well, that’s OK. At least Ashley is the one who made you fat.”

What do you say when your kids embarrass you like that? I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or change the subject or pretend I didn’t know whose child she was.

The sweet lady in Optical felt compelled to tell me I looked wonderful.  (Of course, she probably needs glasses, too.)

I was eventually able to slink out of the office with my chatty child.

We stopped at Sonic on the way home.  “Mom, tell me a story,” she said.

“Once, there was a girl named Samantha who ordered a corn dog from Sonic.”

She was not impressed with my lack of creativity, so I invited her to tell me a story.  “Sam got a corn dog. The end. Your turn.”

Ah, much better.

In the end, I was saved by the actual corn dog, which appeared at that moment and distracted her long enough for me to drive all the way home.

I guess what she was looking for was a romantic adventure that starts with a thrilling drive across an icy road at dawn.  I will save that line for the next time she asks me for a story.