Gutenberg Lampoon » Articles

Ah, the joys of chil­dren. Father­hood truly is a mag­i­cal thing, and I’ll tell you why. You see, I had it all back­wards. I thought that, as the father-figure, I was sup­posed to be the one teach­ing lessons and pro­vid­ing wis­dom. I was mis­taken. Turns out, a three year old girl has me by the short hairs when it comes to wis­dom and logic. I’m telling you.… she’s brilliant.

Unfor­tu­nately, it’s hard for me to describe the lit­tle crumb-snatcher in exact detail. She’s way more com­pli­cated and impres­sive than I can pos­si­bly describe. Just like every kid, she has her lit­tle quirks and her lit­tle goofy habits, all very endear­ing. The truly impres­sive thing about her, though, is her abil­ity to see through the com­pli­ca­tions and con­fu­sions that every­day life brings, and get down to the sim­ple stuff. It’s like hav­ing my own per­sonal Yoda liv­ing in-house. And I will do my very best to pass on her teachings.

Zen Les­son #1 — Feelin’ Good.

Sun­day morn­ing. It’s early. I’m headed to work and every­one else is enjoy­ing their day of rest. So, nat­u­rally, every other liv­ing crea­ture in the house is still sound asleep. Now, some­times, if one of the girls (we have two) can’t sleep at night for what­ever rea­son (funny noises, mon­sters, etc.), we’ll put them on the couch in the liv­ing room and put on a movie or some­thing along those lines. Noth­ing out of the ordi­nary. And, when this hap­pens, they’re usu­ally pretty good. Stay up for a bit, watch their movie, fall asleep with the tv on way too loud… nor­mal stuff.

Well, this morn­ing was a lit­tle dif­fer­ent. I didn’t even know that Autumn was in the liv­ing room, but, appar­ently she had trou­ble sleep­ing some time in the mid­dle of the night and mommy had set her up in the recliner with Rata­touille (a big favorite around here). So, I’ve taken a shower and dressed, and I’m about to walk out the door when I notice her sleep­ing in the recliner.

She looks per­fect. Lots of blan­kets, a stuffed ani­mal, and her hands crossed behind her head, Tom Sawyer style. She looks so peace­ful and just ridicu­lously happy. A lit­tle too happy. Something’s wrong. No one looks that happy when they’re sleep­ing. Not even a three-year old. I’m going in for a closer look.

Upon closer exam­i­na­tion, I real­ize why some­thing seems a bit off. She’s whiter than usual. In fact, every­thing around her is whiter than usual. Every­thing within about a six foot radius is lit­er­ally stark white. Every­thing. Her, the recliner, my desk, the com­puter, part of the cof­fee table, the TV, DVD player, car­pet… it’s all cov­ered in baby pow­der. Not just a light dust­ing of baby pow­der, mind you, but a seri­ous layer. Every­thing is just cov­ered in it! I should prob­a­bly add here a lit­tle fact about us — we’re Costco peo­ple. If you can get it at Costco, then that’s where we get it. We’ve got large quan­ti­ties of every­thing.… includ­ing baby powder.

So, appar­ently, at some point after get­ting put to bed in the liv­ing room, Autumn had got­ten up and got­ten her hands on this Costco sized con­tainer of baby pow­der and gone to town with it. She emp­tied it all over her­self and every­thing around her. The entire thing! Per­son­ally, I had under­es­ti­mated just how much baby pow­der could fit in one of those containers.

My imme­di­ate reac­tion — joy. Pure joy. The kid’s got it. She under­stands the world. She’s so happy, and so cute, what am I sup­posed to do? I can’t get mad. She’s hilar­i­ous. So, I warn mom about the mess, and, like all good dads, I get the hell out of the there and go to work before I have to clean it up.

Later that night I asked Autumn as casu­ally as I could, “Honey, why did you do that with the baby pow­der last night?” Her reply was sim­ple — “It makes me soft.”

Well, there you have it. Genius. It makes her soft. I can’t argue with that. I can’t even add to that. She’s right… it does make her soft. “You’re right, honey. Good job. You’re very soft now.” Done. My job as a dad, done.

I could have scolded her about the mess she made… but why? Besides, it’s entirely our fault. You see, we’ve learned through expe­ri­ence that, if it smells good, keep it out of reach. Our girls, both of them, really REALLY like things that smell good. And if they get their dirty, lit­tle hands on it, well, the game’s over. The end. It’s done. Could be Febreze, air fresh­ener, mommy’s per­fume, and, quite appar­ently, baby pow­der. They will use every last bit of it to their lit­tle happy heart’s con­tent. Genius really.

So, as with all things in life, I think it’s impor­tant to find the les­son. The les­son, I feel, is this: if it smells good, bathe in it. Baske in it. Not just a lit­tle, but all of it. Too much of a good thing — that does not exist. What­ever your baby pow­der is, cover your­self, and every­thing around you in it, then fold your arms behind your head, shut your eyes, and go to sleep. That, my dear friends, is where hap­pi­ness is. Hap­pi­ness is in the baby pow­der of life.