Am I Smarter Than a Pre-K'er?

"Only your real friends will tell you when your face is dirty." ~Sicilian Proverb

If you ask my daughter, the answer to the question I pose in the title of this post, is a resounding "No." ("Silly daddy.") She's told me so.

It's started already. The doubting of what I say. Actually, it's not doubt. It's an outright refusal to admit I'm right, or even acknowledge the possibility that I could be right. (Maybe she's seen what I call my blog.)

But for crying out loud, she's 4 1/2 years old. And she takes the word of her friends over the word of her dad. One friend in particular. We'll call her Rhoda. (That would make the Peanut Mary, after all.)

We were at a birthday party. Peanut was sitting next to Rhoda, from whom she is inseparable. The dynamics of their relationship are equal parts adorable and annoying. In this specific instance: annoying.

They were decorating pumpkin-shaped cookies with glitter and chocolate chips. That's when I spotted one of the cunning older kids go to another table, and grab some gummy worms and M&M's. Well, I'll be damned, I thought...Peanut would certainly enjoy some of that deliciousness on her cookies.

The cookies, with unceremoniously removed gumdrops

So I went over there myself and grabbed a handful of M&M's and some gumdrops that looked like candy corn. She was psyched. But I had started a trend. Soon, the other kids were going over to that table to raid the apparently forbidden candy stash. That's when the mom in charge of the party told them those candies were for the kids with allergies.

I immediately recognized this as a genius ploy to gain control of a crowd that was quickly becoming rowdy over gummy worms and M&M's. The Peanut and her little Rhoda took it as gospel. Suddenly, my daughter who just moments before was enthusiastically piling candy corn gumdrops onto her cookie, was now unceremoniously plucking them off.

"How come you're taking them off?"

"(Rhoda) said they were for allergies." Now, instead of being proud of my daughter for listening, I'm mad at Rhoda for being a know-it-all. How dare she put a cramp in the Peanut's cookie decorating style.

"No, honey. It's fine. You can use them."

"No. (Rhoda) said."

Is she kidding me? As I pleaded my case, Rhoda came to her defense with a superior, sing-song, "Yes they ah-ahrrre." This is what my life has come down to: my four year old and her sidekick passively aggressively singing me the rules of cookie decorating.

I really didn't expect my daughter to think I was an idiot until she was a teenager. Ten or eleven at the earliest. I didn't expect her friends to tell her I was an idiot until then, either. Maybe daddy really does know less.

My wife, however, would disagree.