It was all over the internet. People posting pictures of their kids drawing smiley faces, lots of smiley face emoticons and psychologists who, well, never smiled much.
I took the day off and went home early. The kids were home from school and my wife was taking a short nap.
'Have they stopped drawing those faces?' I asked, waking her up abruptly.
'What?' she groaned.
'Every kid in the world is drawing smiley faces, for god's sake!' I shouted.
I showed her the uproar on the internet to prove my point. In the evening, I picked Ben up and sat him down on my lap for a quiet conversation.
'Ben, why do you keep drawing smiley faces?' I asked.
'I am happy,' he replied nonchalantly.
'Why so?' I asked.
'Because I know,' he replied.
'What do you know?' I asked him testily.
'You wouldn't believe me,' he said, disturbed.
'Well, I'm sure I will!' I replied, looking into his innocent eyes.
'No you won't! You would never believe me!'
'Ben? Stop playing games with me and tell me everything!' I shouted.
'Let me go!' he shouted back.
He squirmed and slid out of my lap and ran to his bedroom. 
Why wouldn't I believe him?

It wasn't often that my kids did something together, but the smiley faces on their "Drawing Wall" said otherwise. 
'Smile,' Ben said.
So I smiled, and he drew another smiley face on the wall. I drew one with him too, smiling at the way his innocent eyes looked into mine. Little George joined in with his little smiley face.

Their affection for smileys went on for many days, until eventually, their wall was covered with smileys and they demanded another drawing wall. I discussed it with my wife and we decided to repaint the old wall to give them a fresh start.

As I was having lunch at my office the next day, my secretary came into the room and whispered, 'I need to ask you something.'
'No, we cannot have an affair, Lisa,' I said chuckling.
'My kids keep drawing the same thing all over the place. Do you think it's some sort of temporary obsession?' she asked, ignoring my feeble attempt at a joke.
'What exactly do they draw?' I asked.
'Smiley faces,' she replied.

The whole incident came to a standstill a week later when I saw that Ben had drawn a fish on the "wall". Little George, on the other hand had moved on to drawing dinosaurs.
That day, I told my secretary she could go home early.
During lunch, I celebrated with my colleagues. Everyone was happy, and nobody really cared about smiley faces anymore.

It wasn't until a week later during the Ashes that a huge UFO landed right in the middle of the Melbourne Cricket Ground. As I watched, dumbstruck, a little figure stepped out of the monstrous ship and raised its slimy grey hand. 
Then the screen showed a smiley face, and I choked on my beer in shock.
Little Ben who was sitting next to me pointed towards the screen in delight and screamed, 'See daddy? I told you, you wouldn't believe me!'