Last week, we spent an afternoon at the beach with some friends. Some of the boys had dug a huge hole, and this, of course, was of great interest to a pair of much smaller children whose group was situated behind us. As far as I could tell, this wasn't bothering our boys, but it certainly seemed to be bothering the mothers of the much smaller boys.
After much repeated redirecting and forcible removing of the smaller boys from the hole, one mother finally laid out her ultimatum:
If you don't stop doing that, I'm going to cancel your birthday and you'll be three forever!
Wow. This lady is sitting on a gold mine and doesn't even know it. In youth obsessed Southern California, mad skillz such as the canceling of birthdays and the aging that inevitably accompanies them would be very well received indeed.
The poor kid was suitably impressed and went and sat on his blanket for a good long while.
