All parents are biased, and people are polite, but I also hang out with the kind of friends that tell you to your face if one of your kids is an asshole, or you are, or whatever.
And it’s a universal constant so far that the two year-old, who looks like a poster child for Aryan supremacy —and also tends to have the same rigorous attitude to rules, and enforcing them, that her Germanic looks imply— has an impact on everyone who meets her. She is only 2.5 years old but has had full on conversations at pretty adult levels, and with a vocabulary that we often wonder where she got it from, since she is two. She’s kind of hilarious too and definitely a daddy’s girl. She has zero hesitation in following me around and helping me with any odd job I might be doing. Throughout the stitching of the new home-made punch bags, she asked me questions about the how and why of what I was doing, and so on. When I explained it all, she noted the jute bags have a smell to them. Not really unpleasant per se , as long as you like the smell of perhaps a mechanic’s hangar in a smuggler’s warehouse. It’s the kind of smell that conjures up images of tropical trips of military arms to fight communism in Asia, or of medical supplies to heal the special ops guys behind enemy lines, the odd parachuting of spies in enemy territory and so on.
Anyway, as soon as I was finished with the stitching, the little turtle said:
“Daddy, I want you to put me in your smelly bag!”
Her infectious smile simply cannot be refused, so in she went, and I carted her around like a child-trafficking Santa in underpants for a bit, the wife filming it for posterity.
The bag is definitely strong enough, and the little blonde Aryan had her curiosity and sense of adventure fulfilled. Successful test run of punching bag strength performed.
This post was originally published on my Substack. Link here
