'I Lick the Toilet, Daddy!'

The other day my two-year-old son, Johnny, ran into the bathroom yelling, "I lick the toilet Daddy! I lick the toilet!" I sprinted after him and snatched him before he could make good on his promise.

See, Johnny is an extrovert, so everything he *thinks* becomes what he *says* the instant he *thinks* it. Like, "I climb the stove!" at the very moment he tries to scale Mt. Kenmore. Or the time he yelled, "I go potty!" during the quiet part of church.

This say-it-as-I-think-it tendency has become especially dangerous as he learns new words. Especially when he has NO idea what the word means. For example, he recently took off his diaper and chased his big sister, Belle, in circles around the living room while shouting, "I need privacy!" over and over. Belle, running, said, "Then goooo a-waaay!"

As you can imagine, our household typically sounds like a zoo. If the kids skip their naps, it sounds like this:

http://www.rallymonkey.com/oldvideo.php

Which is why I like to put my kids to bed early on those days, pour myself a cold beverage and watch this video:



In the morning, my hair looks like Paul Simon's... by bedtime, Art Garfunkel's.

Don't get me wrong, I love my son Johnny, and introverts are no piece of cake to raise, either. My introverted daughter, Belle, might stop to think about what she says longer than her brother--but that just gives her more time to scheme.

For example, the other day she said, "Daddy, I need a pair of pants. Will you pick me out a pair?"

I said, "You're a big girl, how come you don't pick out some?"

"I want it to be a surprise," she said. "I LOVE surprises!"

So I pick her a blue pair and present them to her.

She frowned. "But those are NOT the surprise pants I wanted, Daddy! I wanted the brown pair!"

That's right, she's already picking her own fashions; she's 4 years old going on 16. And, just when I was relieved she was still watching cartoons and not America's Next Top Model...

...she looked at me in the middle of her favorite show, Go Diego Go!, and said: "Oh Daddy, Diego is sooooo HANDSOME!"

I'm like, wha-wha-whaaaat?

Before I could mentally recover, Johnny said, "I grab Daddy's cell phone!"

I'm inventing a new drink: The Vodka Garfunkel.

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