Duh? Huh?

I actually feel drugged this morning. I am slow, and dopey, and disoriented. While I hate the feeling, I am optimistic that some one is trying to slowly poison me to death.
I generally try to say away from potty humor, because I realize not everyone shares my German amusement with the scatological. But, last night after dinner, we took a family walk around the cul-de-sac to facilitate digestion. Along the way, I hear significant tooting, but refrain from commenting so as not to potentially embarrass M. As M is talking, he tries to urge the culprit to apologize by prompting, "excuse me, by the way," to which E says, "no dad, it was me."
This, in a nutshell, is children. Their entire knowledge of the world is based on a single false assumption: that parents are morons.
Did E not get that? Did E think that M was apologizing for a toot he did not commit? Did E think that M would toot and NOT notice? Do our children consider it a small miracle that we don't walk into walls and drown in sinks on a regular basis?
I think E's superiority phase is one of the most annoying phases we've come across with the kids. He constantly correct us, tells us the "facts" and feeds his brother misinformation. He is high on his soap box, and oozing self righteousness.
So, right now I have been thinking of many phases we've outlasted. Certainly this superiority thing is irritating. More irritating than the clingy phase? The calling me by my first name phase? The ignoring me completely in favor of dad (and vice versa) phase. Is it harder than S's I'm never going to sleep again phase? (Oh, wait, we're still in that phase. Not so much a phase, but a mission statement.) Worse than the independent dressing phase (hobo chic, I call it)? Worse than the "I can't do it" or the "Let me do it" phases? I just don't know.
Don't you feel that as soon as you have figured your kids out, they've moved on to something else? And underlying it all is this fallacy that THEY know more than YOU about everything. I think sometimes it's all a big joke. That kids know the power they wield over parents and amuse themselves and each other by torturing us. Do they have secret meetings to discuss their plans and successes? Little midget doors they sneak through, with a secret little handshake, little chocolate milk bartenders in their little speakeasies? At least the thought of that amuses me...because being chronically stupid in my child's eyes is wearing thin.