Even though my children are only five and (almost) two, I enjoy the fact that they are becoming evil, manipulative little devils. Morgan’s still somewhat of an amateur, but she’s learning. Whenever I threaten to spank her she bats her eyelashes, clasps her hands together and cries, “no da da. No da da!” Mason’s slightly better at the game, but not much.

Last night, Mason stayed up over an hour past his bedtime. By the time we got him to lay down he was literally wailing. From the living room I yelled at him to come out of his bedroom, which he did. When I asked him what the problem was, he stopped crying long enough to say he didn’t get to play Nintendo Wii before bedtime.

“Now Mason,” I said, “you got to play Wii three different times today. You played this morning before Morgan got up, after lunch, and before we went to granny’s. You played plenty of WIi today. Now go to bed.

Again, he wailed. “But dad, you won’t let me take my Gameboy to bed,” he said. “That’s right,” I said, “because it’s an hour past your bedtime and you need to go to sleep.

Again, he cried. “But daaaaad, I want my magic wand I lost on the train,” he whined.

For a moment this one threw me for a loop — then I remembered that, six months ago while visiting the local train museum, Mason had dropped his plastic toy magic wand underneath the train, where it disappeared. I couldn’t help but laugh when he said that. I don’t know what synapse fired that made him think that particular straw was the one to grasp for, but I was done with his act by then.

I began opening and closing my hand in front of him. “Do you know what I’m doing?” I asked him.

“Spanking exercises?” he managed to ask, in between sobs.

“Yup. Now get to bed,” I said one last time. This time, he did.