What's tomato with you?

When you’re someone like me that likes to tell stories that focus on your family being ridiculous, there is a careful balance you have to follow when it comes to how far you can push things. Like with my wife, who is an amazing partner and mother, but I know if I go that step too far then I’ll be woken at 2am by her aggressively pinning my genitals to the bed with a gas powered nail gun.And with my toddler, (who will henceforth be referred to by his commonly used moniker, 'The Destroyer') it’s the same worry. Not that he’ll have ready access to a functioning nail gun (until he’s at least six), but that there’s going to come a day when as we both get older, he’s going to be potentially bigger and stronger than me and able to ‘pay me back’ for all the abuse I’ve levelled his way over social media and my blog these past few years.If he’s anything like his mother when he’s older, it’ll be subtle things too that can be easily blamed on someone else. Like painting my old man dentures in tabasco sauce, or pushing thumbtacks through the seat of my futuristic hover-wheelchair right before he dumps me off at the door of the worst care home he can find.Actually, thinking of that future abuse as I write this makes me feel a bit better about telling you how recently he managed to nearly drive his grandparents to dual heart attacks, after making them believe he’d managed to explode his face apart in their front room.Picture the scene; It’s a rubbish day outside and you’ve got your much loved grandson over to spend the day with you. While you busy yourself getting lunch ready and laying out cutlery and condiments on the living room table so you can all eat together, The Destroyer is fully engaged in a ferocious headbutting battle with your sofa which he appears to be losing.You return to the kitchen and dish up his lunch of sausages and beans, and just as you pick up the plate, a gut-churning death scream howls through from the other room.The pair of you race through the doorway, and come face to ‘red smeared howling’ face with the little man. His eyes are squeezed tight shut beneath what looks like a bloody mask, and his screams seem to indicate he’s somehow managed to faceplant into an upturned lawnmower.Every single person reading this would understand if you fell to the floor in terror, clutching your chest tightly as the white tunnel beckons you on to a better place. But luckily Destroyer’s grandparents are made of much sterner stuff than I, and after a quick inspection it became clear why he looked like he’d just been given the pig’s blood bath in the penultimate scenes of the film ‘Carrie’.You see, I bet at some point in your life, like me, you’ve picked up a bottle of shower gel with some kind of exotic ingredient inside that tickles your interest. You’ve then opened the top to give it a wee test sniff, given it the slightest of squeezes to release some of the fumes, only to instead crush the damned thing between your stupid fat fingers and send a good splodge of ‘Cool Mint & Tea Tree Oil’ gel right up your inhaling nostril.Well this is pretty much what happened with the Destroyer when he decided to find out exactly what the ‘full to the brim’ tomato sauce bottle smelled like after you gave it a good heave.With his eager two fisted grip, he lifted the bottle up to eye level and crushed in the sides. A split second later nearly half a bottle of tomato based condiment shot out the plastic spout and smashed into his surprised little face. It took a second or two for his wee brain to catch up with why his eyes, nose, mouth, parts of his ears and pretty much his entire head were encased in tomato sauce, but when it did all hell broke loose.It took poor Grandma and Grandad a good amount of hugs, two or three towels, reassuring belly rubs and a hefty handful of chocolate raisins to coax him back to his normal self, and even now days later he side-eyes the spaghetti bolognese he sometimes gets for dinner, because it's acting very ‘tomatoey’ in a suspicious manner. via /r/Parenting http://bit.ly/2RcuqBP