$10,000 in the swear jar

"Man, Lyla, your sheets are totally--"

I almost said they were totally fucked up.  As a child who grasps new words quickly, Lyla would've started calling everything fucked up.  "Daddy, your nostrils are fucked up."  Not good.

The trouble is Julie and I have always described imperfect bedsheets as fucked up.  I don't know why.  Julie says it's the only accurate phrase.

"Dan, you fucked up these covers."

We've assigned one of the most vulgar expressions in the English language to one of the most ordinary situations.  Perhaps we need more excitement in our lives.

"I did not fuck them up."

"You and your big galoot legs fuck up the covers every night."

"Woman, do not accuse me of these crimes.  You are this bed's chief fucker-upper."

Secret #1 to marital happiness: talk sweetly to one another.

The other day, Lyla helped Rowan make his bed.  Five-year-olds are terrible at bed-making; best case scenario involves the sheets going from catastrophically fucked up to pretty fucked up.  But you have to praise the effort.  Otherwise they might go to daycare saying fuck.

Where is my timid, cautious toddler?

Julie and Rowan arrived at the train show and found a very different situation from what was advertised.  Rather than a Thomas the Train festival with wooden train tables, snacks, and life-size characters to hug, it was a locomotive trade show for old autistic men.

Meanwhile, I took Lyla to Edinborough Park (a giant indoor play structure covered in microscopic fecal matter) and found a very different Lyla from the last time we were there.  Where was my timid, cautious toddler, and who was this chimpanzee?  I made the mistake of trying to follow her through the labyrinth for awhile.  Height difference alone meant I had to crawl while she sprinted, so it was ugly, and I was lucky to get out of there with limbs, if not dignity, intact.

Afterward, we ate at People's Organic, her favorite restaurant for reasons known only to God ("Why is it your favorite restaurant?"  "Uh...I don't know.").  It took forever for the food to come out, but Lyla waited with patience and good cheer.

Back at home, the spoils of Christmas continued to delight.

"Daddy, did you see that!?  This car is out of control!"

"Want me to teach you how to steer it?"

"Uh, sure."

In ten years, we'll have that conversation again. 

Non-bath-night bath

We've been parents for five years now and have never won a single award for the cleanliness of our children.  "My, your children are clean," a stranger has never said. 

But this evening, Rowan requested a non-bath-night bubble bath.  He wanted to relax after a tough day, perhaps, like every romantic comedy's female protagonist.  So Julie sat up there with him while he splashed around.

After 10 minutes or so, he stood up and announced,  "I wanna det out now."

Julie put down her magazine, rinsed him off, and grabbed a towel.

"I want you to mate me into a ta-toe."  (Making him into a taco involves wrapping the towel around him, neck to toes, like it's a tortilla and he's a slippery piece of chicken.)

"Okay, buddy."

Then he changed his mind.  "No, Mommy.  I want you to mate me into a baby buwwito."  (Making him into a baby burrito involves exactly the same procedure.)

Tomorrow Julie's taking him to a train show at the River Centre in St. Paul.  Smart money says the instant he sees Thomas the Train, he'll aggressively release his bowels and negate the bath.