Two Things.
So today Noelle and I had what would be politely perceived as a "domestic disagreement." Not a dispute, just a lack of seeing eye to eye, which is actually quite uncommon over the last 15 years or so we've been together.

What is not uncommon, was that it was over housecleaning. You see, the last three or four weeks, Noelle has either been quite ill, or out of the house on cleaning day (usually Saturday), so I have taken it upon myself to "clean" the bottom floor, anyway, and often scrub the bathroom as well.

Now to those of you familiar with the way a guy "cleans", you will understand why I put the word clean in quotation marks. It seem that women (and I know I'm not the first person to say this) see dirt and untidyness that men, well, just kind of miss.

For instance, today I finished tidying the living room, swept the floor and was getting ready to start mopping, when I was brought short by Noelle who said "But we're not finished cleaning the top half of the room." So I looked around, and things looked pretty good. Big mistake. Then I made a bigger mistake, and said "Why, what's left to do?"

Within minutes, I had a pretty clear picture of the piles of toys, the clean laundry, and the paint roller...yes, the paint roller, underneath the chair, all of which I had missed.

Now I used to accuse Noelle of being able to see dirt on a subatomic level. Dirt Quarks, if you will. But even I have to admit that a bright red paint roller underneath the chair I had just swept under (and keep in mind this is one of those Ikea bent wood armchairs, so it's not like it's hard to see underneath...it's a matter of standing about four feet back and looking down), should have been a little more apparent.

So to simplify the whole cleaning process, I shut my mouth, and went to Ikea to buy her presents. Specifically a bed. We have been married for 13 years, and this is the first time we have ever owned a Headboard and Footboard for our bed. Getting it home strapped to the top of Evanrude (our hatchback) in 65 km/hr winds was an adventure. Suffice it to say that the twine they give away at the Ikea loading area is very very strong. Strong enough to keep a virtual wing attached to the top of a small bubble shaped car at about 50 km/hr with a vicious cross wind. 'nuff said.

The second thing, is that Isaac it seems, has gotten a wee bit...well... bossy. We are now at the point that if he doesn't say please and ask nicely, he doesn't get what he wants at all, which usually precipitates a fiesta of howling, which results in him being even less likely to get parental buy in to his initial idea. So we are aware that everything can become a war, and we manage expectations accordingly.

However in the car today, on the way to buy a pumpkin, I turned right in a responsible way, and from the back seat I hear "No, daddy no do that!"
"Do what?"
"No do that!"
So I ignore it and keep going. Then few hundred metres up, I change lanes, again in a responsible way, and he shouts "Daddy, NO DO THAT!"
"Do WHAT?" demand Mom and Dad in unison.
"Daddy no make ticking noise."

That's right, he was telling me how to drive.

It turns out that he found the turn signal indicator annoying, and he wanted me to stop using it. We explained at some length that it was the proper thing to do to signal your turns in advance, and he stopped yelling at me about it, but I don't think he was convinced.

Now I have visions of him ending up as a cabbie on the Danforth 20 years from now. God knows most of them have never even heard of a turn signal; he'd fit right in.

Finally, I was reminded this evening of why we named him Isaac. The word in Hebrew means "laughter", which is what Sarah broke into when the angel informed her that she was pregnant at the ripe old age of about 95.

We were in the tub this evening, and he was soaking merrily away, when I took his little caterpiller bath toy, put it on the side of the tub and started singing...
"You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy, when skies are WHAAAA!" and threw the caterpillar into the tub.

Typical daddy game, I know.

Anyway, he thought this was the funniest thing since Cosby doing Noah, and made me repeat it about 40 more times. I eventually ran out of songs, and had to put a halt to it.

So if nothing else, the kid does redeem himself with this wicked sounding throaty cackle/giggle which for the life of me I have no idea where he got it from :), which he uses fairly frequently.

So I guess parenting, as in all things, is all about appreciating the little things.