This morning I woke up to Little Dude tapping me on the leg:

“Papa,  I need you to wake up and play cars and airplanes and Star Wars with me. I’m taking the day off from school.“

Like most 4-year-olds, Little Dude thinks rocks are awesome. He stacks the big ones, collects the pocket-sized stuff and buries his cousins (at their request) in gravel. Rock time inevitably leads to scratches which are pretty awesome, too. After coming in from some flush-faced rock hefting, Little Dude began showing off his cuts and scrapes:

“Look! I was with a rock and one scraped me. See? It scraped my sensitive skin.“

We’ve been eating out way, way too often. But that’s OK because Indian Oven is delicious. Last night, as we were soaking in curry and piling our plates with Tikka Masala, Lady-Friend gave the rice props for its consistent fluffiness. Little Dude was right on board:

“Fluffy rice… yeah, like a pillow.  Like you’re chomping on a rice pillow!”

Yesterday, Mother Nature pounded us with some serious wind. A winter’s worth of trash and tumbleweeds made a break for it and apocalyptic gusts of dust mixed with a spattering of rain. While the wind and rain was making everything outside look like Mother Nature had just taken a dump all over it, Little Dude’s bitterness, (crappy weather bitterness that’s been growing all winter) was unleashed:

“Why do we have such terrible weather in Utah? We need to move to Hawaii right now.“

We use toys to motivate Little Dude. You know, manipulation. It’s for his good: underpants with tractor tire sized skids can be embarrassing. As part of his infinite toilet indoctrination, we’ve got a Star Wars guy on top of the fridge as a motivational reminder. Just so no other kid could claim it, he snuck up, grabbed the package and  wrote his name in red marker all over it.

Still, he doesn’t appreciate having to “earn it”. He’s also been enamored with the Night Fury from How To Train Your Dragon.  The other night, 45 minutes or so after after getting him into bed, I went back to check on him. I was surprised to see he was still awake with fake-closed eyes and a muted smirk.

“What’s up, pal? Having a hard time getting to sleep?”

“No. I was just saying my prayers that a Night Fury was real, that I’d wake up and see a toy. You know, the droid tank you can put a guy in with the eyes?– in front of the place in the living room. The place where I sit in front of to get warm in the morning.”

“The fireplace?”

“Yeah! And I also asked that you’d give me that fire droid on the refrigerator and I didn’t have to earn it.”

In the back of my mind, I had two choices: A) become an answer to a child’s prayer or B) promote a faith-shattering moment.

Enter choice B– which I all but forgot about until this morning I heard a cry from the living room:

“What!? But I said a prayer that it would be there! Where is it?”

…

At four, we haven’t given Little Dude his wipe-your-own-butt diploma quite yet. He’s getting there, but we’re still subscribers to the “Leave No Trace” wiping discipline. Little Dude– not a fan.

After the umpteenth wipe:

“Ouch! PAPA!!”

“What?”

“That hurts! Get it [the TP] wet.”

Suddenly, I began receiving a play by play. Apparently, in the time it takes between us hearing “I’m DOOOOOOOONE!” to our arrival, Little Dude’s been perfecting a process.

“Yeah, that’s better. Now get another one. Don’t wipe, just pat. Ok, that’s good. Yeah, now pat it. There. Good. Yep- that’s what I like.“