Long before I was a parent, I saw the Italian language film "Life Is Beautiful" ("La vita è bella") starring Roberto Benigni. It's the story of an Italian Jewish father who uses his imagination to convince his young son that life in a concentration camp is fun. He tells his kid, Joshua, that they went to the camp to play a game, and the first person to get 1,000 points wins a tank.

Albeit fictitious, this is one of the finest examples of parenting I have witnessed and I keep it in the back of my mind at all times, drawing from the memory when I find myself in a difficult situation.

Like yesterday, for example.

I took my kids on a "winter walk" and the first half hour was great. We made snow angels, stopped at a nearby park where they cruised down a snowy slide and ended the hike with hot chocolate at a cafe.

On the walk home, however, both decided they were too tired to walk and wanted me to carry them. I am no stranger to carrying two boys at once, but ever since they broke the 45-lb.barrier, I can only tote one at a time.

I started out doing the ridiculous. I picked up one, carried him down the block, set him down and then went back to get the other. Granted we were only three blocks from my house, but after one round of this nonsense, I knew I had to get creative to get these whiny munchkins to walk home on their own.

Luckily, Benigni's whimsical face popped into my head, and reminded me to make this a game. I told them I had an invisible stopwatch, and I was going to time how long it took us to run home, and if we did it in less than five minutes, we would all get a prize.

And for the love of spaghetti, it worked.