Which bit of that did you not understand?

A few years ago, when I was annoyed at the fact that the Boy never seemed to hear what I said - or at least never took it in - I spent one weekend counting how many times the Boy actually heard what I said and how many times I had to repeat myself. After this small experiment, I found that he only hears about two thirds of what I say. After speaking to a number of other married friends, the ability to phase out the voice frequency of ones wife is quite a common skill.

Now we have Eve, and I am primary caregiver and spend more time with her, I find myself often telling the Boy crucial things about Eve (he would argue that I nag). The same two thirds principle applies, so often something quite crucial about Eve gets missed. It annoys me that I have to say things over and over again.

However, today Eve decided, in a more effective fashion than I ever could, to ensure that the Boy always listens to me regarding Eve in the future. We were playing at home and the Boy decided that he would "fly" Eve (lie on his back and hold her in the air - it makes her giggle lots). I advised, quite firmly, that as Eve had just fed he shouldn't play flying because it presses on her tummy and she would be sick.

The Boy looked at Eve with a look on his face that said "silly Mummy, she just wants to ruin our fun". He lay back, picked up Eve, where upon she smiled and threw up on his face (and in his ears) making it look like he had just been hit in the face with a large custard pie.

As he wiped the baby vomit of himself I found myself, with some satisfaction, uttering "I told you so".