Yeah, it really is about the kids.

Ages ago now I taught James that certain phrases have power.  In particular, stop the car  would almost invariably result in the car stopping almost immediately (within reason, of course). The purpose of this was as a secondary step to the far more important, my seat belt , phrase.  He learned them both at the same time, because they were intimately connected.  He should always announce if his seat-belt wasn't on or wasn't tight.  This because I had caught myself a couple of times almost forgetting to tighten his seat-belt.  The way this happens is he had started insisting that he wanted to climb into his seat himself, so I would let him.  But this was in the winter and it was either cold or, toward the end, rainy and awful, so I would close the door behind him while he climbed in and I was getting Daniel in his seat.  A procedure only slightly less challenging than getting a cat in a wet-suit (originally written: the Battletoads Turbo Tunnel l...