Evan: “You know what’s cool?”
Me: “What?”
Evan: “We usually wake up at 4 AM. So we can play before breakfast.”
Me: “Uh… that’s not cool.”

This morning I discovered that I’m the featured character in a recently published cowboy novel: “The Sheriff’s Double – A Clint Williams Western.” I stumbled across it on WorldCat and then looked up the synopsis on the publisher’s website.

“Becoming sheriff of a small town in the 1840’s was just the beginning for Clint Williams. He was soon embroiled in an attempted murder and a journey to free a friend’s slave family.”

Apparently I’m a former private in the Union Army who becomes the sherrif of a town named Bernalillo, and then works to uphold justice and undermine slavery, reuniting families along the way. Sounds pretty good to me.

I guess I never fully realized the “cowboy central protagonist” potential of my name until this moment. Maybe I should start wearing chaps to work, and salting my conversations with the occasional “yup,” “reckon,” and “pilgrim.”

The author, Gerald J. Berry, has written two other books, both set in a post-apocalyptic future, but it doesn’t look like I have a part in those.

Until recently we weren’t sure what kind of ants they technically were. We knew that they were small, black, and smelled like blue cheese when we crushed them, so we called them the Blue Cheese Ants. When we shared these little observations with our friend Teresa (a pest control authority from her time with Alpha Ecological), she immediately informed us that they were Odorous House Ants. She also informed us that we could get them under control pretty easily just by setting out liquid ant baits for them.

Well tonight we decided that the colony had become a little too prosperous, so we went shopping for ant baits. We settled on a brand called Terro^® Liquid Ant Baits, partly because of this winsome text on the back of the box:

“ATTRACTS AND KILLS ALL COMMON HOUSEHOLD ANTS INCLUDING: Argentine ants, Pavement ants, Odorous house ants, Cornfield ants, White footed ants, Little black ants, Big headed ants, Acrobat ants, Ghost ants, Crazy ants and other sweet eating ants.”

It was the part about Crazy ants that sold me. If this stuff can kill Crazy ants, then it’s good enough for me.

Levi threw up all over the inside of the van.

We had just come home after a busy day and were in the very act of exiting the vehicle, when Levi, who sits in the back, suddenly stopped and braced himself between the two middle chairs. “Come on Levi, let’s go,” I said. In reply, he made a little burping noise and released a volley of puke all over the upholstery. A moment of stunned silence prevailed, with Lisa and I looking on in muted horror. Then came a second, even more productive heave, as Levi began hosing half-digested foodstuffs like he was Linda Blair. By the third heave I became aware of a desperate and pleading voice crying, “No! No! Noooooooooo!!”, and by the fourth heave I realized that the voice was my own.

Lisa and I spent about two hours last night conducting a hazmat cleanup of the van after the boys were asleep. We removed all 3 carseats, 4 of the chairs, and about 4 bags of belongings, and then scrubbed down and sanitized everything.

This morning the van still smelled like vomit. We went through a second round of scrubbing, but with less hope for a completely restored vehicle.

At this point I’m thinking that our family car has a lot of evergreen-scented air fresheners in its future.

1. Dad: “That’s a nice picture Logan.”
   Logan: “It’s a dark forest.”
   Dad: “Oh? How dark?”
   Logan: “One hundred dollars dark.”

2. Logan: “Ask me to hear a joke.”
   Dad: “Okay, can I hear a joke?”
   Logan: “Why did a boy swim in a water with a bad sock?”
   Dad: “Uh… I don’t know. Why?”
   Logan: “Because he wanted to be EATED by the bad sock!!”
   (At this point I realized that he was trying to say “shark” rather than “sock”, but still…)

What can I say? He is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma, that eats only fishy crackers.

Here are my favorite two so far:

There’s something about the cardboard-like crudeness of the animation that I think really adds to the humor. If you want to see a few more you can check out all the videos they’ve posted at YouTube. You could also visit their official website, but the video plug-in there isn’t working for me for whatever reason.

“Whenever you get a ‘Fly So Fast it Reverses Time Itself’ gadget on your belt… let me know.”

Boy, you said it Chewie.

This little chat took place while we were circling the parking lot waiting for Lisa to come out of the grocery store with a couple things for dinner. I didn’t think Levi even had much of a mental concept of Canada, but apparently he’s been in endorsement discussions with them for some time.

Congratulations son, that lifetime supply of maple syrup is coming in the mail.

(Insert ominous B-movie fanfare here…)

The boys had finished eating dinner, and I had just sat down to start eating, when all of these things happened, one after the other, within the space of about 10 minutes. It still amazes me to recall it…

1. Logan emptied all the soft soap from the hand pump onto the bathroom counter.

   Then, while I was cleaning that up…

2. Levi pooped his pants (uh… not in a diaper).

   Then, while I stood Levi in the bathroom, took off and threw away his underwear, and attempted to salvage his pants…

3. Logan pulled all 60 or so wetwipes out of the diaper wipe dispenser and distributed them around the living room.

   And while I stood in shock, staring at that…

4. Levi wiped his poopy bottom with his bare hand.

   Then, best of all, while I ran the decontamination drill with Levi…

5. Logan climbed up in my chair, ate part of my dinner, and rubbed a dirty sock in the parts he didn’t want.

   Which finally leads us to the punchline, where…

6. Levi said, “Daddy… why do you look so upset?”

Ahem… good times.

1. Mommy: “So what was your favorite part of the Noah’s Ark story today?”
   Levi: “The part where they brought in the food.”
2. “I don’t have any yawns in me tonight.”
3. And drumroll please… “I’m sorry I pooped on the couch Mommy.”

I’m not kidding about that last one. That was Levi’s heartfelt apology made about an hour after the occurrence of an event so catastrophic that I will spare you from any more elaboration.

Well, sometime during the first couple days I began to doubt that diagnosis and I specifically asked him if he had stuffed something up his nose. “Noooo,” he told me, with an incredulous look. Of course not. Why would a three-year-old stuff something up his nose? That’s crazy talk. I took a look up there and couldn’t see anything, so I took his denial at face value.

Days went by.

A week.

Then, yesterday, Lisa was helping Levi blow his nose and what came out? A WHOLE UNCOOKED PINTO BEAN. You know, the rock-hard, speckled type. And this was not a shy little pinto bean either — this was a king-size pinto bean. The sort of bean that makes the rest of the bag jealous.

Of course, Lisa had a safety chat with Levi about the importance of not stuffing things up your nose, and we hope that he learned something from the experience, but only time will tell. He didn’t seem to remember where or when the bean-stuffing occurred (or maybe he thought the details were best forgotten), but we theorize that the bean probably originated from Nana and Papa’s “Beanland” — a tub of dry pinto beans that my parents keep for the boys to play with (and which, need I point out, is harmless to anyone with an ounce of common sense).

Remind me to add, “And don’t cram anything up your nose,” to my list of important safety tips for children.

Logan has developed a fascination with nightlights. Specifically, a fascination with pulling them out of their sockets and taking them apart to see how all the pieces fit together. I think that, deep inside, he would like to take a very surgical and diagnostic approach to studying them, using an array of tools to carefully disect them and catalogue their contents. It’s obvious in his manner, when he has just pulled a nightlight from the wall and is holding it up at arms length, face intense with concentration. There’s a thirst for empirical knowledge there. But, since his fine motor skills haven’t yet caught up with his lofty aspirations, he is forced to settle for simply banging the nightlight against any available hard surface until the components surrender their stubborn hold on one another and fly in all directions.

We’ve done our best to keep nightlights out of his hands, but it requires unceasing vigilance. At bedtime, after Logan is locked — er, tucked — safely in his crib, the nightlights go in their sockets. And at dawn, before Logan wakes up, they get removed and put away, with harmless plug covers inserted in their places. It’s just that there are so many nightlights strewn throughout the house, and the process of stowing them is such a tedious ritual in an already overflowing schedule. Sometimes a nightlight gets overlooked and left in its place.

But never for long.

As soon as Logan hits the floor each morning he’s off in the hunt. For him, visiting every baseboard wall socket in the house is not a tiring chore, it’s an exciting contest which offers occasional rich rewards.

I think the Checkout lady at Walgreens is beginning to suspect what’s up. She’s politely avoided asking any questions so far, but the other day, when I was buying two more nightlights, she coughed a very fake sounding cough that almost sounded like it was stifling a bit of a chuckle.

Some nights I ask Levi what he wants to do or be when he grows up. Not because I want him to be concerned about that stuff yet — he needs time to just be a kid — but because his answers are always so humorous. Here are a couple exchanges:

And on another night…

As you might infer, Lisa and I are changing a lot of diapers. I would have to rate changing diapers as probably the least wonderful part of being a parent. If I was writing a book about parenthood I would be tempted to title this chapter something like “The Abominable Necessity of Touching Other People’s Poo-Poo.” I’ve taken to wearing a medical glove on my wiping hand for especially unpleasant diaper-change assignments, and yet I still end up feeling tainted somehow, in a way that soap and boiling water can’t quite seem to erase. (Insert Lady Macbeth analogy here.)

I’m very much looking forward to the day that both of our boys are potty trained, and can do these things for themselves. Oh, how glorious it will be. Parenting will seem like a downhill coast from that point on, I think. That day can’t come soon enough. Tomorrow would be good. If we can’t make tomorrow, let’s shoot for next Tuesday.