There's a baby in the Vaseline!

Me holding the naughtiest thing on the planet at
String Lake in Grand Teton National Park.

I'll never be able to figure out how my one-year-old daughter crams so much naughtiness into that tiny little body.

Take tonight's good news/bad news, for instance. I'll give you the bad news first: while I did a 30-second errand to a different part of the house, Cute Little Head, my daughter, had to see what trouble she could cause, obviously.

So when I returned from the brief errand, I found an open Vaseline jar repeatedly slipping out of her newly greased hands.

I didn't even know we had Vaseline. Where'd she get that? How'd she get it open?

Now when I say greased, I mean completely and helplessly at the mercy of a half-inch thick layer of petroleum. She could have picked up small rocks without using her opposable thumbs, which have probably gotten more workout than the chubby digits of any child her age because of her food-scrounging habits.

After the Vaseline jar clattered to the ground to spread grease in a bouncy smear across the wood floor - thankfully not the carpet -  I watched her flick her hands wildly to try and get rid of the slime. Tiny bits of Vaseline rocketed off her jiggy hands and attached to the wall like little slugs. That didn't do much to fix her situation, so I had to intervene. When I picked her up from the tornado-like circle she was turning to try and dislodge the Vaseline from her paws, I realized it was worse than I thought. Her chubby hands were barely visible through the thick layer of grease she had managed to get almost up to her elbows, jammies and all. A murky outline of round digits waved up through the pure petroleum. I spent the next half hour cleaning up after her.

When I got her to the sink, she desperately lunged for the spigot, dropping her little tushy into the sink to try and get the water running. Of course, since water is useless against the fiend that is Vaseline, all she really managed to do was soak her jammies from the waist down with cold water and make the circumference of the faucet handle a little bigger by adding a layer of petroleum.

I stripped her down to her diaper and started by using my hand as a squeegee to get as much of the sticky slime off her hands as possible. Since I had to be firm to maximize effectiveness, she looked at me like I was a villain and jutted her chin out at me so her two bottom teeth pointed at me accusingly.

After a long stay in the sink with a washcloth and jammies converted into a backup washcloth, her hands and arms looked sunburned from all the rubbing. Other than the glares, though, she took it pretty well. And now you could shine a fleet of cars with those two pieces of fabric.

Now the good news:
1. My hands feel softer than they ever have.
2. The wood underneath the disaster zone is uber shiny.
3. I could go swimming and a good portion of my body would come out dry with only a few beads of water left atop the film of Vaseline still hanging out there.
4. I'm pretty sure I could do the Tom Cruise underwear slide down the hall without wearing socks.
5. We're pretty much out of Vaseline.
6. No greased babies slipped from my hands during cleanup.
7. Mine and baby's fingerprints will be visible to the naked eye for the next week, making crime seem less tempting.
8. Baby is asleep as I write this.

You may think this is funny. If you do, stop laughing. Karma will make your kid do something even worse. I think I have to improve my zone defense.

Frogs on fire: the answers to life's big questions through the eyes of toddlers

Ask this frog the question, and he just might
tell you the answer.

Last night I was driving in the ol' swagger wagon with my family, heading to grandma's house for a Sunday dinner. Never did I expect to find the answer to one of life's biggest questions while going to my mom's house.

My 3-year-old son posed the question: "Why do frogs burn up?"

I wondered how many times I had heard that question posed by the greatest philosophers and sought the answer myself.

After a thorough search of my memory, the answer came to me: zero times. Zip. Zilch. Nada. That doesn't mean I didn't wonder anyway how a philosopher would answer the question - those guys are pretty zany with their metaphysical wonderings.

Anyway, my 2-year-old daughter, perhaps the greatest philosopher in the family, had the answer: "Mmmm," she said thoughtfully before answering, "Because they have a fire on them?"

My favorite was that she put a question mark at the end of her answer, perhaps recognizing the nonsensical-ness of our son's original question, but answering it as seriously as she knew how. These kind of exchanges really make me laugh, and they happen all the time in our household.

Funny Kid Story #4: Just last year

Being part of a family with three potty-break-happy children on a road trip, I'm always pleased to find a rest area with a family restroom. This makes potty breaks a lot easier. More importantly, not so many men passing through the restroom get to laugh at the insane antics I have to deal with every time I'm in a restroom with  my children.

Since this was the 600th potty break during this particular voyage, I exasperatedly hauled my son (wearing sandals) and daughter (barefoot) out of their back seats in the van to take them into the restroom without worrying about putting on the sandals which the girl had shed - also for the 600th time. When we got into the restroom, I realized there was nowhere to put her down without contacting - um, questionable floors of the restroom. I've seen how well my own kids aim sometimes and I'm afraid that was the general condition of the restroom. Proud of my brainchild, I realized my actual child could wait on the changing table while the actual emergency named "the boy" took care of business.

As I sat her down, she looked at me and said, "Daddy, this is for babies."

I looked at the 2-year-old giving me the sass and said, "You still are my baby, sweetness."

Her reply, spoken like a true teenage daughter: "Daddy, I'm not a baby anymore. I was a baby last year."

I tickled her and told her how smart she was, but part of me realizes her assessment is sadly accurate. Now that we have a newborn in the home, she has really realized she's not the baby anymore. But she will always be my baby, even by the time she's making me grandbabies. She just doesn't know it yet.

Funny Kid Story #3: Dancing Baby

This morning I was listening to Internet radio on my headphones while holding my infant daughter. Until now the kids have only ever known that headphones were good for removing the little buds just to annoy Daddy. But this morning I introduced to them what they were really for right after they woke up, sticking a bud in each of their ears.

They both got cute little grins and announced how silly it was that music was coming out of there. Pretty soon, my infant started squirming with hunger pains on my chest while the other kids listened intently to their shared ear buds on my lap. My older daughter got a cute grin on and said, "I think baby's dancing."

It's fun to watch kids build the framework of understanding around their lives.

Funny kid story #2: Little donkeys

As we were driving through Grand Teton National Park earlier this week, our 2-year-old daughter spotted some pronghorn antelope in an open field. Not knowing exactly what they were, she improvised as best she could in an ecstatic voice: "Mommy, Daddy, I see some little donkeys out there!"

 At least she didn't call them the Biblical alternate.

We saw some of these "little donkeys" in Grand
Teton National Park the other day.

If it were an adult calling a moose an elk or asking when the elk turn into moose, we'd all laugh because that person is a complete moron. But when coming from the mouth of a two-year-old, it shows major intelligence. We laugh because it's still funny, but at the same time we pat ourselves on the back for teaching her well enough that she could come up with a reasonable explanation for what was out there on the fly. She has had hugely limited experiences up until now, so it was fun to see her make such a connection. Watch for these funny ways your kids communicate the world as they know it. They help to brighten your day and you can begin to see intelligence taking shape.

Funny Kid Story #1: Standing in the sunshine

Glacier water cools you down real quick,
but our 2-year-old daughter spent 10 minute
chunks of time in up to her waist.

We went to the glacier-fed String Lake in Grand Teton National Park yesterday where the water temperature hovers just above absolute zero. Swimming in the lake is a little like cryostasis. I'm pretty sure you could live forever by floating in this lake if your heart doesn't fail when your toes hit the water. I swam in it. Briefly.

But my daughter put me to shame. While all the adults were daring each other to go and egging each other on whenever the sun came out from behind the clouds, my daughter spent 10-minute segments of time buried up to her waist in the freezing water. She busied herself by digging mud off the bottom of the lake and placing it in a pail to make us "soup." At the end of each 10-minute segment of water time, she traipsed up the hill to make sure we got some of her lovely broth, colder than gazpacho and uglier than black bean soup.

Delicious...

Anyway, she would come out sometimes and shiver just outside the water in the dappled light of the shoreline. We being good parents, while her teeth chattered, encouraged her to come up and wrap up in a towel and get warm. She being my daughter (as opposed to my wife's) just refused by answering, "No, I standing in the sunshine." Immediately after making the statement while her knees knocked together and her teeth clattered like wind chimes made out of hundreds of small rocks during a hurricane, she would tear back down to the water and go back in to her belly button. It was like she thought we'd deny her the privilege unless she took advantage of it that instant.

I have to say that I liked her rationale, though. Standing in the sunshine is the quickest way to warm up. And you can look at this from a general perspective on life that when your life is coldest, you need some sunshine to warm you up. Your sunshine might come in different ways: time with loved ones, pursuing a hobby or giving service. Whatever that sunshine is, though, if you seek it out and bask in it when you're up to your neck in life's cold, the water won't seem as cold the next time you have to dive in. Heck, you might even enjoy it.