Elijah and I were washing our hands in the bathroom the other day--an activity which I, with my infinitely good parental judgment, have declared necessary after I wipe his ass--when Regina walked into the room with a surprise.

She had a carrot between her legs.

"Look," she said. "Mommy has a peenie."

She wiggled the carrot around.

"What the hell are you doing?" I asked.

This was very inappropriate!

I looked at Elijah, who didn't seem offended at all. In fact, he seemed overjoyed.

"Heh heh," he said. "WAHHHHH-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!"

"It really does look like a peenie," Regina said.

Sure enough, the carrot had a little tip, which was separated by a ridge from the rest of the carrot. The wife had a point, so I excused her this transgression. And I even excused her when she took Elijah into the kitchen, cut off the tip of the carrot peenie, and gave him the carrot to eat.

"You circumcized it," I said.

Later, I walked into the living room. Elijah was laying on top of Regina, watching The Iron Giant for the 500th time.

"Your son just told me I had a baby in my tummy," Regina said.

"Elijah," I said. "That's not appropriate. Tell your mommy that she's beautiful."

"No," Elijah said. "You're beautiful, daddy."

"Thank you, son, but you still have to be nice to mommy."

"I told him that he had a baby in his fat ass," said Regina.

"Nice," I said.

"Daddy, I have a fat ass," Elijah said.

"No one in this house has a fat ass!" I exclaimed. "OK?"

"OK!" said my son to me. "You're a talking banana."

That was an insult I could accept. Another great moment in fatherhood had concluded. So I went away and hid in back of the house until it was time for Elijah to go to bed.

Posted by at 12:15 PM | Permalink