All Considered . com

Long time no update…

We just finished a week-long family vacation in Las Vegas - quite a feat if you consider the “team”: 5-year-old William, 10-month-old Isabella, my parents (both in their 60s), my hubby (who doesn’t like asking for directions and believes he can “eventually” find anything by randomly driving/walking around). On top of everything, the temperature reached 3 digits all week - as high as 114F!

Good news is that we are all back to California and appreciate the mild climate much more ^_^.

One lesson we learned from the trip is that you should beware of what you teach your children. It may come back and bite you when you’re least expected.

William likes to play with the spoons and cups in the restaurants. To help him behave, my husband once pointed to the ceiling camera and told him that someone was watching him.

“William, be very careful. If you break the spoon, the police will get you.”

That worked. We were happy - well, until we were in Vegas.

As we passed by the ground level casino, William suddenly turned around and yelled “Be very careful Daddy! There are lots of cameras!! The police will get you!”

All the gamblers stopped what they were doing, to pay homage to probably the best known casino cheater in the nation. A security guard standing nearby stared at us with a strange look on his face…

It took us two days to correct the embarassing habit - by telling William that he should whisper when he spotted a camera.

“If you say it too loud, the person watching will hear you and think you did something wrong; then the police will get you.”

All went well, until we were about to leave.

It was early morning. We were in a crowded, unusually quiet elevator when William pulled my husband’s hand and said, in a small but clearly audible voice, “Daddy, be very careful! There is a camera right over your head…”

For the remaining of the ride, my husband had at least half of the space in the elevator. I should have let him take the stroller and the bulky diaper bag…

It was late afternoon. My husband was drinking a glass of ice water. My 4 year old came to him.

“Daddy, you know if you drink all these ice, you will freeze…”

“Yeah?” asked Daddy, not convinced.

“Yeah! Your heart will freeze and your heart will break like ice…”

Hmm… THAT was interesting. Daddy put down his glass.

But the little guy wasn’t ready to stop.

“And you will pop like a bubble. Pop!” he opened his arms, imitating the burst of the unfortunate bubble.

“and then,” he continued, with a mischievous smile on his face, “your wedding ring will fall to the floor… and I will get it!”

He had been nagging for our wedding rings recently, without success. After he broke my husband’s Treo password (God knows how) and deleted all his applications a few days ago, we determined it was a good idea to keep certain things away from him.

Obviously, that didn’t stop him from wanting, and imagining…