Have I mentioned how diligent I am with this “blog” thing?

I’m like a wizard.

Who’s always late.

And boring.

So – My wife and I have a teenager now, and for all intents and purposes, he’s a pretty good kid.

He works hard in school. He’s sociable. He’s handsome and funny.

Basically all the things I wasn’t at 13.

Which is cool, because a parent should want their kids to have a better life than them. We do.

This card I have says that’s what I believe.

Apparently he was swearing a bit at school. Nothing shocking, just a few things that we as a modern, 21st Century civilization have come to deem as tolerable in public.

No big deal. I can handle that.

My 9 year old daughter, however, is a different matter.

I love her to death. She’s a sweetheart, who is generally really good and helpful most of the time.

Only every once in awhile, does she absolutely drive her mother and I right around the bend.

And this past weekend, while I was home visiting from a course, she said something that was kind of, well, unbelievable.

Now I don’t dare repeat it here, but while holding a pencil, sitting in the van as I was getting coffee, she said something to the effect of “depressurizing the contents of below average sized male genitalia”.

Yeah.

I don’t even think Dennis Farina (May he rest in peace, the f***ing f***ball) would ever come up with this line.

Part of me was furious. Part of me was doubled over. But the part of me right in the middle (specifically the heart part) felt a little bit bad, because it is entirely possible that through my decision-making paradigm as a parent, I might have let her think that a statement such as the one she made, may be not that bad.

We immediately corrected said behaviour, as parents do. She teared up. It never happened again.

But I still think about it. It still bugs me. Not that she said it. But that she figured it wasn’t that bad to say in the first place.

Recently, a friend who has a relatively new baby has been picking my brain for advice about parenting for guys, and I have tried to steer him in a positive direction, i hope.

But if there is something I can share based on my ongoing growth as a dad, a father and as a human being, it’s that our children can stupendous mirrors for the kinds of people we are, and reflect back the things we do and say.

So please – be bloody clear about what you want to have staring back at you.

Otherwise you may unexpectedly find yourself doubled over from a hit below the belt, with your heart in your hands.