What Happens In Tennessee...

I went with my wife and kids to a week-long family reunion in Tennessee with my in-laws. Great folks. Great time. My two-year-old daughter, Belle, learned a lot on the trip. For example, we’re walking up a path to a waterfall in the Smoky Mountains and Belle sees her Uncle John.

“What are Uncle John and [his girlfriend] Megan doing?” Belle asks.

Fortunately for me, they were just holding hands.

“Do you think they like each other?” Belle asks.

“Sure seems that way,” I say.

“Think they’ll keep holding hands?" she says.

“Probably. Your Uncle John really likes her.”

“I like Megan, too,” she says sweetly, one finger in her mouth and swinging her other arm.

Belle sees an inchworm and we examine it for awhile. The inchworm “stands” up at one point, sticking its body up in the air.

Belle tries to mimic the worm, putting her right leg up in the air, looking more like a dog fertilizing a hydrant. “Look Daddy,” she says. “The inchworm is standing like this.”

Her one-year-old brother, Johnny, giggles. “Is Johnny funny about that?” Belle asks.

The trip from our Wisconsin home to Tennessee is about 14 hours by car. We try to limit their video time, so you can imagine the number of books and toys we hand back to the kids to keep them entertained. Johnny looks at each toy for about 10 minutes then makes like the Swedish Chef.

I open the side door to the minivan to find the largest toy salad ever created, and I run away screaming “Avalanche!”

My wife even resorts to passing back tampons from her purse. Now those fascinate Johnny for quite some time.

We listen to a lot of music in the car. Which is great, until you want the kids to sleep. “Time for night-night,” I tell Belle.

“Can we listen to The Beatles?” Belle asks.

“Nope, it’s sleepy time,” I say.

“Johnny wants to hear The Beatles,” Belle says.

“John’s asleep,” I say, “plus he can’t talk.”

“Johnny wants to hear… Johnny Cash?” she tries.

She’s as bad as the "Land Shark" on Saturday Night Live, the Chevy Chase character who would try anything to get into your house—even claim to deliver a “Candy-gram…”

Belle’s an inquisitive girl to be sure. The other day, Grandma is in the kitchen and Belle asks, “Grandma, do you have privates?”

A few days later, at the library, Belle randomly pulls a book off the nonfiction shelves that says the Spanish equivalent of “Manual for Infant Emergencies.”

"I read this," she says, holding it up. The librarian chuckles. I think it's a wise selection, but unfortunately a couple weeks too late for her brother’s trip to the ER.

All this learning is going to her head, though, I think. Leaving the library, we pass a middle-aged man who says hello. “That was Frank Sinatra, Daddy,” she says definitively, raising her pointer finger into the air and nodding.

The middle-aged man didn't even have blue eyes. My son is exploring, too, in the form of climbing everything. The other day, in about five seconds, he scales Belle’s small chair, goes from there up to her drawing table, to an open kitchen drawer, and onto the kitchen counter with a big smile! Luckily, the sitter turns around to quickly scoop him up.

Turns out that, when my wife was a baby, she crawled onto the stove and kicked on a burner, lighting her diaper on fire and causing the adults to hose her down in the kitchen sink. Luckily, she was unharmed. My brother-in-law told that true story in Tennessee.

Gotta love family vacations.

Making the Most of a Seizure

Last week my one-year-old son, John, had a seizure—you know, eyes rolled back, arms twitching—and went to the hospital in an ambulance. Thank God, he’s fine now.

It wasn’t anything to joke about—but the fact that he milked our sympathy for all it was worth was.

Johnny got away with everything. He chewed on cell phones. Grabbed medical cords. Even worked the hallways of the ER by the end of the night, winking and waving at all the nurses like he was Dr. McDreamy.

Why didn't I ever think of that when I was a kid?

The UW Badgers’ football coach wants to capitalize on Johnny's suave talents, too. Coach has recruited Johnny to toddle the opponents’ sidelines this year, yanking all the cords on the opposing coaches’ headsets.

I smell scholarship.

I discovered Johnny's seizure in an odd way. My two-year-old daughter, Belle, and I were roaming the shopping mall, searching for my wife and son. I came upon the center of the mall, noticed a toddler convulsing and thought, “That’s odd; there’s a convulsing baby wearing the same outfit as my son... wait a second!” Then I ran up to the crowd yelling, “that’s my baby!” Only after the crowd parted did I see my wife, who told me the ambulance was on the way.

Then I set the world record for Fastest Mental Rosary. (Sisters Bernadette and Mary Katherine would be so proud!)

Meanwhile, Belle’s having a typical meltdown. I pointed to her brother and said: “Johnny’s very sick, the ambulance is coming. We need you to be a big girl right now.”

Belle, of course, didn't get it and said, “But I want to look at the teddy bears!” and pointed at a mall vendor’s make-your-own-teddy-bear stand. A few minutes later she said, “Some day I’LL get to ride in the ambulance!”

This made me think of some odd comments made recently by author Daniel Gilbert while he was a guest on The Colbert Report on Comedy Central. He was promoting his new book about happiness.

“It turns out kids have a very small effect on happiness, and the effect tends to be negative,” Gilbert stated rather matter-of-factly. “That means that people who have children tend to be a little less happy than people without.” That comment was greeted by a raucous cheer from a drunk woman in row 4 of the TV audience who obviously had some delicious snacks waiting for Hänsel and Gretel.

But Stephen Colbert, the host/comedian interviewing Gilbert, didn’t let him off the hook.

“Are you confusing happiness with the feeling of the sublime?” Colbert asked Gilbert. (Colbert was actually being serious.) “Because children are a pain in the (rump), I’ll grant you that," Colbert said. "But the feeling that comes with children, I have found, is superior to happiness: That is, the sublime.”

This week, Belle and I experienced the sublime while flying her kite at the park. (Or as Belle would say, “the kite flewed away.”) I held the taut kite string while she held the slack, and we ran together. I’ll never forget the blissful look on her face, mouth open, giggling. It was a sunny day, one so bright you experience it like a dream while you’re living it. If that’s not happiness, I don’t know what is.

Besides, happiness in parenting is how you look at it. For instance, Belle recently volunteered to “clean” the bird poop off our deck furniture (read: smear) with her fingers. I haven't read Gilbert's book but, based on his comments, I suppose that scenario wouldn't fall under his definition of granting a parent happiness. Then again, Belle did dub herself “Princess Bird Poop,” and that definitely gave me ample joy.