Tagged: Godzilla

Raisin Hell
My daughter spiked her half-eaten apple on the floor like a football, slid her Sippy Cup off the high-chair tray as if it were a shuffleboard, and with finality, proclaimed, “Duh!”
I don’t remember which loinfruit introduced it or when, but for anyone under the age of two in our household, this has become the customary Closing Ceremonies for a meal, for alerting one’s parents that the eater is “Done.”
Looking up from dinner’s dirty dishes in the sink, I watched my wife release my daughter from the clutches of her high chair, pick her up, and bravely walk our kitchen’s version of The Green Mile–past an old bookshelf we’ve converted into a snack shelf (Pantry 2: This Time It’s Personal, if you will). Although our children claim to be “duh” with their food, as soon as we de-high-chair them they often notice Pantry 2 items that were not on that meal’s menu–morsels they must receive promptly if the parent on duty wishes to avoid a brilliantly-executed tantrum.
While they’ve learned many words so far, there are still a sizable amount of items for which the Twins still use the caveman-style point-and-grunt method, and on this particular day, my daughter’s finger shot out instantly at her target. Unfortunately for my wife, she did not leave enough distance between my daughter’s ninja arm and the shelf, and before we knew it, our daughter had snatched the entire bag of miniature Sun-Maid Raisin boxes.
This snack is popular with the Twins not because they are particularly fond of raisins, but because they absolutely adore having their own little boxes to carry them in. We have scientific proof of this phenomenon, as whenever my mother offers the Twins unboxed raisins at her house, they look at her like she’s nuts, as if to say, “What is this sh!t? Where’s my f*cking box?”
“Ooooh! OohOohOooooooh!” my daughter enthused, waiting for my wife to open her a box.

Fatherhood of the Unraveling Pants
I put my pants on in the morning just like all non-nudists (or Donald-Duck-like cartoon characters)–one leg at a time. Except once my pants are on, I chase little people for 14 hours.
However, for a rare moment, my son was engrossed in reading/eating The Tale of Peter Rabbit and my daughter had her puppy-dog eyes in full force, shaking the five-shades-of-pink Lego bag as if to say, “Daddy, build me a Disney Princess castle so I can get my Godzilla on,” so I decided to seize the opportunity to actually sit, take a breather, and play with my daughter rather than chase whoever decided to go on the lam (as if I were Mary’s Little Lamb).
“Sure, Baby Girl. Let’s play Legos.”
But as I joined her on the floor, I overheard something sounding remarkably like the tearing of fabric and detected a cool draft in a discreet body location.