Exactly How Hungry Do you Have to Be...

While picking up one of my daughters one day when she was about five or six, I noticed she was quiet. A little too quiet. That awkward silence when you know you are about to have a serious conversation. I looked in my rear view mirror and her little eyes were welling up.

"Honey, you OK?"
She gave a long, drawn out sigh. I started to get worried. What was going on?!

"What is it kiddo?"
"Well," she paused, "I am hungry."
"OK, what do you want to eat?"
She paused for a while.

"I want to eat...the road."
"OK well, let---wha?" I caught myself mid-sentence. "Did you say the road?!"
"Ya, the road." Drama was gone from her voice now and she shifted to an intellectual connitation. "You know," she pointed out the window,"the road."
"The one we are driving on?" I was still trying to figure out where she was going with it.
She rolled her eyes at me.
"Uhhhh, ya!" She spoke with a valley girl flair.
"Didn't know that was one of the food groups." I smiled back at her.
"Well it IS."

I drove for a few minutes in confused silence, then offered a compromise.
"Want to stop for a hamburger on the way home instead?"
Long pause as she looked out the window to consider my offer.
"Yup."

It's amazing what a modern public education teaches children these days, eh? I guess the food pyramid had to be built on some foundation. Asphault, who knew!

Boys Are Boys, and Girls are Girls!

When one of my daughters was young she had the end all to any conversation. Trying to teach her that she couldn't follow me into the bathroom, we taught her that, "Boys are boys and girls are girls."

Well she got the message loud and clear. It soon started extending beyond the bathroom boundary...

• Why won't you eat your dinner? Boys are boys and girls are girls!
• Why don't you want in to your carseat? Boys are boys and girls are girls!
• Why don't you want to go to bed? Boys are boys and girls are girls!

Soon it evolved into a conversation all its own.

"Mom?" She would say from her carseat.

"Yes dear?"

"Boys are boys and girls are girls right?"

"Yes dear."

-conversation over.

So if you find yourself looking for something to say in those awkward silences that happen in conversation...just remember:

Boys are boys and girls are girls!

-'nuff said.

"Oh My Dosh!"

Toddlers come up with the best comebacks of any age in my book. They do their best to talk like us grown-ups do, but their little voices little munchkin voices. I love it!

When my daughter was in those toddler years, she shocked my wife with a comback we still use to each other ten years later. My wife was twirlling her hair, and she in turn was trying her best to twirl my wife's.

"That hurt's mama!" She said to my wife.

"Oh, whaaatever,"My wife teased back

My daughter got serious and mustered her own little toddler rebuke,

"Don't 'ebber' me mama! Say 'OH, MY DOSH!'"

How to Make Chocolate Milk

When my oldest daughter was six, she was asked how we get chocolate milk. "Well," she thought for a second, "the first thing you have to do is shoot the chocolate cow!"

Keep Film in Your Camera

In 1998 I worked for a company that did promotions in Australia. I went down on a business trip for three weeks. I saw the sights and worked hard! Everywhere I went I took my camera with me. I was snapping pictures of everything.

Now let me qualify this, waaay back in 1998 there was no such thing as a digital camera. We used what was called film. It was a crazy thing, you opened up the back of your camera, pulled a little film canister out of your pocket, and wound it in to the camera.

Everyone caught up? Good.

Three weeks long I was taking pictures of myself with baby kangaroos, holding koala bears, seeing some of the ugliest bugs I'd ever laid eyes on, playing Cricket on the beach, and making new friends.

"Wow," I kept thinking to myself, "there is a lot of film in this camera!"

I kept snapping photos, but the film never ran out! The camera would stop automatically and rewind the film, I kept reminding myself. So, I kept going. Snapping, photos left and right.

Three weeks later after I returned to the good ole' U.S. of A., I grabbed my camera and told everyone how excited I was to develop the photos I took Down Under.

I opened the back of my 'fool-proof' camera and found a hollow interior. Three weeks of photos wasted because I took for granted there was film in the camera in the first place! Argh!

Now I understand that we all have those moments, call it Murphy's Law, Blonde Moments, or whatnot where we are caught not quite as prepared as we thought we were. I have a mantra for the world. Keep film in your camera. Life is much more satisfying if we are prepared.

So, my advice to all of us out there...everyone please, please make sure there is film in your camera!

"Oh, because your a grouch?"

Yesterday my wife caught my 2-year-old trying to write on the wall with a lego of all things. "No no Maggie," she started as calmly as she could muster, "we don't scratch the walls."

My daughter looked up as innocently as an angel and said, "Oh, because your a grouch?"