Little Miss Smartie Pants

One advantage of being the dad is being able to enforce the Dad Tax which states that a small portion of any food item goes to dad. For example, after the kids return from trick or treating, they each take turns dumping their bags of loot on the kitchen table. Once all the candy is organized into proper piles, Dad gets first choice of 5 items.

The Dad Tax relies on deflection, quick thinking and the kid’s questionable math skills. Whenever I order a few Happy Meals the kids start to complain when I sneak a few of their french fries until I remind them I only took one fry instead of what looked like five or six to them.

But I was reminded that all this school has upped the ante when attempting to enact the Dad Tax on Luca. The other day she took a few rolls of Smarties candy and placed them on the kitchen table. I watched as she moved them around making different shapes until she got up to grab a glass of water. This was the perfect opportunity to collect the Dad Tax as I quietly snatched four Smarties. She looked over and saw me laughing and said, “Hey! I hope all my Smarties are still there. I counted 30 of them!’”

Collecting the Dad Tax had never been met with such resistance. Luca returned to her seat and began to count her Smarties one by one. “Twenty three, twenty four, twenty five, twenty six…..HEY! Someone took FOUR SMARTIES!

I was busted. The weak link in the Dad Tax is that it relies too heavily on my kids possessing poor math skills. Looks like this tax has met its match in a 1st grader who’s a Little Miss Smartie Pants.