"I BET!"

Yesterday we pulled the kids out of school after lunch so we could make the one hour journey into town to watch my daughter play her first state tennis match.

If you wanna know what it's like to ride around in a beat-to-crap van-down-by-the-river all day with the dummy family try saying Unique New York over and over and over and over.

Go ahead, try it--double dog dare you.

Did it sound like this? New Yeek New York, New Yeek New, New Yeek, New York.

Or did it sound like this? U Neek U Nork, U Neek, U Nork, U Neek U Nork.

Either way, you're now officially a dummy! Congratulations.

So about my daughter's first state tennis match. She basically played a machine, but she got one game off her and she made the machine work for every point, so as parents go, we are proud as peacocks. She's only a baby freshman after all, and it's an honor just to have your baby freshman nominated.

After the match we went to Costco and ordered some pizza. My daughter said "I'm tired" and I said, "I bet."

Then she said "I KNEW you were going to say I bet. You ALWAYS say I bet after I say I'm tired. I don't know why I even bother telling you I'm tired because I already know you're going to say I bet."

Enlighten me peeps! Is there something more appropriate I should be saying? Like I'm tired too so quit your whining!

I bet just sums it up so succinctly. It's so much more pointed than saying, NO DUH you're tired, and well you should be--it's an inevitible repurcussion of playing on the Freshman tennis team while simultaneously playing on two select soccer teams and qualifying for the National History Day competition. You deserve the world's longest nap, girlfriend.

So then she said, "I have a headache."

So I said "I BET!!!"

Only this time I bolded it and capitalized it and punctuated it thinking that might encapsulate what I really meant to say, which was of course, NO DUH, girlfriend! You deserve to have the world's largest headache because you just played THE MACHINE in the state tennis tournament.

She just rolled her eyes and said, "Mom, you have pizza in your teeth."

I should have elaborated.

I should have said, NO DUH, I have pizza in my teeth! That's like saying, Mom, you have fillings in your teeth. It's an inevitable repurcussion of being old and dumb and eating at Costco.

But I didn't. Just as I wouldn't have elaborated if my oldest son had said, Mom, I need a massage, or if my twins had said, Mom, I'm going to chase roosters, or if my husband had said, Hon, I'm going to give a motivational speech to the kids.

I simply gave her the same response she would've given me had I said, I am so going to blog this!

I rolled my eyes and said, "I BET!!!"