My son's selective hearing.

This Saturday night, Luke was supposed to go to bed, but he wanted to hang out in my room and watch DVDs on the PS2 and all the other "I get to stay up late!" stuff that kids that age do on weekends.

At any rate, I decided that, with him off to bed, and me needing a bit of a distraction from my work that evening, I thought I'd play a little Culdcept Saga for the XBox 360. For those unfamiliar, it's roughly equal parts Stock Ticker, Monopoly and Magic: the Gathering. Actually quite a lot of fun, and my son is into it a lot. Enough that he can figure out what to do in an effort to give the computer AI a good game, which I think is impressive for an eight-year old.

Now, I haven't played the game in a couple of weeks, mostly because I have been quite busy, but also because, every time I try and play it, I have a little eight-year old rug-rat hanging on my ankle suggesting a play on each and every decision.

Sure enough, even though I've turned down the TV volume in the living room, and it's dark in the house, and it's almost 10pm, within (I kid you not) thirty seconds I hear some scampering footsteps and a cracker-dust covered kid in pajamas dives on the sofa and starts asking me what I'm going to put in my deck, why do I call it "4 Color / fast", why I should play that card, how cool that card is that he doesn't have in his collection (hint, hint!).

This naturally coincides nicely with the last dozen times I've tried to scold him for misbehaving and not doing what he's told and getting a teary "b.. b.. but I didn't HEAR you, Daddy!".