The World According to Osten

So I was taking the kids to school the other morning, and Marci was just a wailing away to the high heavens in the backseat about some unfortunate circumstance or another. I was doing my best to calm her while driving the long, narrow two-lane road that leads to the kids' school, and she was having none of it. Finally, her sobs subsided, and she began demanding that I sit with her. As she jackhammered her little hand on the side of her car seat, she began repeating, "Mommy sit right here." I consistently tried to explain that I couldn't sit with her while driving us to school. When I looked in my rear view mirror at Osten, I could see that he was completely bored with the whole situation so I tried to recruit him as my ally in the battle of explaining the obvious to his little sister. He gave it some thought and then he burst out with this:

"Marci, you know Mommy has a big bottom. She CAN'T sit in your car seat!"

And that pretty much took care of that. End of discussion. The world according to Osten. It's amusing and surprisingly effective.