Sophie Lane was fit to be tied. Isabel, her toddler daughter, had a doctor's appointment for a checkup and booster shots and she was having the devil's own time in getting ANY cooperation from the child in getting ready for said appointment. Izzy, quite understandably, wanted nothing at all to do with getting any shots and she was making it known at a decibel level that would put a jet plane to shame. Just as Sophie was about to call the doctor and cancel the appointment, Ed walked in the door from work.

"Ed! Thank God you're home! You have GOT to help me get Izzy ready for her doctor's appointment, I've got a retirement party to set up tonight and I'm running out of time."

"What, no 'hi, honey, how was your day?' " Ed teased her. Seeing that he was not getting the desired reaction he hugged his wife and said "never mind about that; I'll take her. You just worry about your retirement party."

Sophie stood back and looked at her husband as if he'd just sprouted a second head and it was speaking Martian. "Do you really mean that, Ed?"

"Sure. We had a pretty non-eventful day today so I'm mellow right now. Go."

She didn't wait to be told twice, she grabbed her car keys and hightailed it out of their home before he could change his mind.

After the smoke of Sophie's departure had cleared, Ed took a deep breath and went upstairs to their daughter's bedroom to see what he could do.

"Daddy!" Izzy launched herself off of her bed and wrapped her little arms around Ed's legs.

"Hey there, sweetheart! What do you say we get your shoes on so we can go see Dr Anna?"

"NOOOO! No see Dr Anna!" With that, Izzy launched into yet another screaming fit and threw herself back onto her little bed. Ed reeled at the sheer volume – and duration – of her screaming, and like every other parent, he tried to calm her down using the time-honoured technique of Parent-As-Mini-Psychiatrist:

"Now, Izzy, let's calm down, OK? Can we be quiet, please, for Daddy? Calm down, OK?"

And like every other parent he failed miserably in his objective. If anything, her shrieking increased. Now what? But Ed had a weapon in his arsenal that most other parents did not – negotiator training. Figuring what the hell, it couldn't HURT, he decided to act as if Izzy was holding her teddy bears hostage and he was trying to get said "hostages" freed safely. Pulling up her small chair, he sat down in it as best he could and looked at her.

"OK, Izzy, I get it – you don't want to go to the doctor. I completely GET that! You're mad and you don't want to go with Daddy just like you didn't want to go with Mommy. You don't like to get shots and I don't blame you. I don't like them either."

Izzy's screams began to taper off – maybe he was onto something here – so he kept going. She sat up on her bed and looked at him with a little pout, finger in the corner of her mouth.

"Daddy no like shots?"

"No, Daddy no like shots. But you know what Daddy does like?" She shook her little head back and forth. "Daddy likes Izzy. In fact, Daddy loves Izzy. He loves Izzy very very much, and Daddy would be very sad if Izzy got really sick because she wouldn't get her shots. Would Izzy like it if Daddy was really really sad?" Again, a 'no' shake of the head – it seemed to be working. Standing, Ed stuck his hand out to his daughter – "ready to go, Izzy?"

Reluctantly Izzy got off of her bed, clutching her favourite stuffed toy, and took his hand. "OK, Daddy."

"That's my brave girl. And brave girls like you deserve a little treat when we're done; would you like to stop for ice cream on the way home?"

"Mommy!" Izzy ran into her mother's arms when Sophie got home from setting up the retirement party. "Izzy got shots today! Then we gots ice cream!"

Now Sophie KNEW Ed had been replaced by some sort of alien pod-person. "You did? Did you get chocolate sprinkles on it?" Izzy nodded her little head vigorously. "I'll bet it was delicious. Now run upstairs and get ready for bed, OK?" She turned to her husband when their daughter was gone.

"Right, Ed, spill. How on earth did you get her to the doctor? You didn't threaten to shoot her, did you?"

Smiling as he took his wife into his arms, Ed replied "no, I just took a page out of Greg's playbook – I negotiated."