You must be careful not to laugh...

when informing your 6-year-old son that the "ON STRIKE" sign he's spent half an hour making actually says "NO STRIKE."

Halloween II

For a moment I thought the Village People had reunited...

When Sage swiped Evan's water pistol...

Evan: "Sage! Sage Elizabeth McHenry, come back here! Do you want a time-out? Daddy, do I have enough power to give Sage a time-out?"

getting dressed

Sage has 1,374 socks. And no two are alike.

Evan, buttoning up his shirt, just said: "I'm going to look so sharp, everybody's going to be flabbergasted."

the cradle will rock

Evan: "Daddy, are you going to sing me a lullaby tonight or not? It's your choice."

Eric: "Do you want me to sing you one?"

Evan: "Sure."

Eric: "Okay. Let's see..... (singing) Mommy was a pretty little girl....."

Evan: "No, not that one."

Eric: "Well, what lullaby would you like to hear?"

Evan: "How about something with beatboxing?"

Daddy once again blames the victim

Tonight Evan grudgingly brushed his teeth, then reached for the glass of water I'd set out for him on the sink and knocked it to the floor. This made him laugh.

Eric (annoyed): "Can you say, 'I'm sorry'?"

Evan: "Why? It's your fault."

Eric: "What? You knocked the water over and I'm about to clean it up! How is that my fault?"

Evan: "You put it in a precarious place."

lost classic

A friend reminded me of the time Evan, age 4 or thereabouts, saw a police car rolling by with its windows down. And he shouted to the officers, "Don't worry! I'm good!"

You can imagine the look of relief on their faces.

infinite regression

Evan: "You're a pretty careful driver, Daddy. You don't run into many things."

Eric: "Thanks."

Evan: "If Sage drove, she'd probably go a little ways and then crash into a stop sign."

Eric: "Yep. She wouldn't get very far."

Evan: "And if I drove..."

Eric: "You might get a little farther than Sage before you crashed."

Evan: "Yeah."

Eric: "And Sage would get farther than Franklin."

Evan: "Yeah. And Franklin would get farther than a mosquito."

Eric: "I don't think a mosquito would have enough weight to depress the gas pedal and move the car."

Evan: "And a mosquito would get farther than a germ."

Eric: "I suppose so."

Evan: "And a germ would get farther than........... hmm....... A microscopic mechanism? A germ's baby?"

our relationship in a nutshell

Eric: "Do you want your privacy?"

Sage (smiling): "No. I want your privacy."

vocation

I'm a bit worried that Sage may have a future in talk radio. She has very strong opinions that are based on very little information.

watching Chris Matthews on MSNBC

Evan: "He's staring at me."

Halloween one-liners

Evan (dressed as a Secret Service agent, shining a flashlight in the face of an approaching trick-or-treater): "I need to know your identity."

***

Candy-dispensing homeowner: "Let's see what we have here. A pirate, Indiana Jones, and a Secret Service agent."

Evan: "Yeah. The jaguar went home."

***

Evan: "Did you hear what I said to the Angel of Death? I said, 'I'm not afraid of you. I'm from the Secret Service.'"

small carbon footprint

Evan: "Sometimes I take the kid taxi. Kids have their own taxi service, you know."

Eric: "I didn't know that. ... So, who drives the taxis?"

Evan: "Kids do. But the cars are smaller than regular cars."

Eric: "Oh. Do they drive on the sidewalks?"

Evan: "No, they drive in the streets. But they have flashing lights and sirens, and signs that say, "LOOK OUT. I'M DOWN HERE."