"Remember the force field."

He was dead serious, my neighbor was, when he uttered those words to his son last night. I heard it and just looked at him for a second, waiting for him to burst out laughing. But he didn't. After a few minutes I mentioned that I had a new quote for the next day. That's when he smiled and explained: To keep son from playing too roughly with little sister after she had come home from surgery (to remove magnets from tummy), he took a kid-friendly approach and told his son that he had to be soft with sister and to treat her as if she had a force field around her. He laughed a bit and said something about not knowing exactly how to explain it all to a 5 year old, but I thought it was perfect. It had worked and that's all you can ask for as a parent, especially when you say something so, well, weird. Just genius.