Aha! So humility is the lesson kids are meant to teach!

If you've read my initial note on Facebook, thanks for coming here to read again!  I'm not doing any real editing on these first notes, other than taking out those paragraphs I put into my first explanatory post, so feel free to skip to anything you haven't seen yet.

 For anyone entirely new to my child-centric ramblings, here are the first few stories that got me going:

1. Alyssa. My dear oldest child, Daddy's little girl. Sweet as can be. My darling daughter Alyssa, five years old now and getting a little too smart for Mommy and Daddy's good, hits us with some great stuff sometimes.

As a lot of my readers know, I was a bit overweight a couple of years ago. Like the Sta-Puft Marshmallow Man was "a bit overweight." Seriously, how I let that happen is just shameful. At the beginning of 2009, I set out to lose the extra weight, and I did it. I lost about a quarter of my body weight, and I've been pretty proud of myself. Maybe a little vain. OK, definitely a lot vain. Thankfully, the apple of Daddy's eye is around to knock me back down a couple of pegs.

Alyssa and I were playing, doing something, I don't remember what, a few weeks ago. Whatever it was, it was something that I probably would have been too winded to do when I was a fatty. Alyssa looked at me sweetly, smiled a beaming smile to melt my heart, and said, "Daddy, I like it better now that you're not so...puffy. Remember when you were puffy? Like this?" Then she blew air in her mouth and puffed up her cheeks. To show me how "puffy" I was, just to be sure I remembered. Then she laughed and ran off.

Thank you, Alyssa, yes, I do remember when I was so puffy. But I'm awfully happy you're here to remind me at odd moments.

2. Now Ethan, he's Daddy's boy. He's the only other bastion of maleness in the house, the only other soldier to stand with Daddy in the battle against the overwhelming femininity of Mommy and her two tiny female minions. Surely, Ethan will always stand firm on Daddy's side, right? He'd never cut down the other guy, right? Oh, yeah. Right.

I was feeling grumpy one Saturday a few weekends ago. I don't know what it was that caused it, I'm sure it wasn't important, but I was grumpy. And I was cleaning up our kitchen, so my mood wasn't exactly improving. Ethan had been after me to turn on the TV, to play Cars with him, to turn on the movie Cars, to do this and that. He's a three year old, it's his job. I played with him a few minutes, then told him I needed to get some work done. I turned on Cars and brought his Cars toys downstairs to keep him occupied, and got to work.

So there I was, standing at a sink full of hot water and nasty dishes, and Ethan came running into the kitchen. "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy?" "What is it Ethan?" "Can I have juice?" Sure, kid, here's your juice, now go watch your movie. "Will you come watch with me?" "I have to do dishes. I'll be right here if you need me." He gave me a tiny little scowl, said, "OK," and went back into the kitchen. I dove back into now lukewarm dishwater, turned on some hot to perk it up, and got back to work.

Not two minutes later, Ethan was back. "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy..." "What, Ethan?" "Will you come watch now?" "Ethan, I have to clean up the kitchen. I'll be right here if you need me." Another tiny scowl, another "OK," and he went back to his movie.

A couple of minutes later..."Daddy, Daddy, Daddy..." "Ethan, I'm busy doing dishes. Are you OK?" "Yes, but..." "No, Ethan, I'm busy, go watch your movie." "But, Daddy..." "Ethan, I'm busy, I'll be done soon, then I can play, now let me do the dishes!" "But, Daddy..." "NO, ETHAN." At this point, he scowled mightily, stamped his tiny little foot with whatever tiny force he could muster, and said, "But, Daddy, I HAVE TO TELL YOU SOMETHING!" "WHAT IS IT ETHAN? WHAT CAN'T WAIT?"

He lit up, gave me a giant smile, hugged my leg, and said, "Thank you for juice. You're the best daddy in the whole world."

Oh, well, yeah, obviously. Just look at how well I handled this one.

3. Even Addison. "How can Addison do anything," those of you who know me are asking. "She's only a few months old." Sure she is. But she still messes with me, and I'm sure she does it on purpose. I think all three of them do these things on purpose, but it's the tiny babies that have the rest of the world conned into thinking that they don't. And she has to be creative to do these things, because she doesn't talk or move much yet.

I was home with my darling children while my wife was sick and trying to take a nap. The older kids were quietly and happily playing with some toys, Addison was sitting in her little Bumbo chair, and I was happily lying on the floor, enjoying this idyllic little scene. For about two minutes. Then, Alyssa did something with the toys that Ethan didn't agree with, they started arguing, I started to get up to referee, and Addison...

Well, I don't want to be too graphic, but let's just say that babies can only make a few sounds, and the sound I heard next, even over the big kids arguing, did not come from her mouth. And the smell that followed was astonishing. I yelled at the big kids to go to separate sides of the room, encouraged them to do so quite quickly (for "encouraged them to do so quite quickly" read "grabbed each one under the arms and pulled them to separate sides of the room"), and dashed to my baby. To find that diapers, to be delicate, sometimes cannot fully contain the wrath of a determined baby. Sometimes, the onesie, the clothes, and the chair she's in, on top of the diaper, can barely contain that wrath.

So now, I've got two crying kids trying to tell me their side of why the other kid was wrong in their argument (in the broken language of upset three and five year olds) from two sides of the room and a crying baby with poop halfway up her back held gingerly in front of me. I shushed the two older kids, told them it didn't matter who was wrong right now, and we'd talk after I took care of their sister. Then I rushed Addison to the changing table and started surveying the damage and working out how to best remove her clothing without worsening the carnage.

As I started trying to manipulate the clothes over her head (because, of course, they all have to be pulled over her head - isn't that fun?), she looked up at me, paused for a moment to listen to the continuing chaos of her elder siblings snuffling and complaining about each other, surveyed my no doubt frantic, wild-eyed face, and gave me the biggest, sunniest smile you can imagine. Then she giggled.

Oh, she knew what she was doing. They all do. Don't try to convince me otherwise.

Stuff My Kids Have Done To Me

Inspired by another blogger out there, I started writing down some of the things my kids do in notes on Facebook.  That's not exactly the ideal way to keep doing something like this; I got tired of it pretty quickly.  So I've made a blog to do it.  Allow me to plagiarize myself to better explain what I'm doing here.  The following were the first two paragraphs of the first note I created.

So there's a blog or Twitter account or something out there called (keeping it cleanish for any smallish eyes here) "S*** My Dad Says." It's strange and funny or disturbing things that this guy's older dad has said to him. Thinking about that, I realized kids tend to do some of the same kinds of things...they blurt out odd or inappropriate statements, they have no filter between what they're thinking and what they say, and they cut loose with some honesty sometimes that just blows your mind. Invariably, it's pretty hilarious looking back at it. At the time, though, it's almost certainly not very funny. You other parents know what I'm talking about.

All that rambling is my way of saying I'm going to try to write down some of the funnier things my three kids say and do. I'm only going to start with a couple today, and I won't be too surprised if I just kind of forget about this for weeks at a time, but I want to give it a shot. I'm calling it Stuff My Kids Have Done To Me because it's not always just what they say...it's what they do, say, and how it just cuts you right to the core.

And that's pretty much it.  I'll copy the three notes I've created so far as my first three substantive posts, and I'll go on from there.  Thanks for reading!