Can you tell me how to get to Sesame Street even though it's early in the morning and you'd rather be sleeping?

Z the middle schooler (!) started out the school year getting up early and happily getting ready for the day. Then, a few days ago she started waking up and saying groggily, "Five more minutes" and then, on Tuesday she woke up and groaned, "Twenty more minutes!"

Having gone to the Secret Academy of Fathers, I know that there are three basic ways that are SAF-approved for waking children and getting them out of bed:

1) The use of lights of various intensities and colors

2) A constant barrage of bad puns

3) The use of singing and/or musical instruments

I chose option #3 and since I had just seen baby M starting Sesame Street downstairs, I started to sing this song:

"Sunny days! Chasing the clouds away.
On our way to the where the air is clear!
Can you tell me how to get...
How to get to Sesame Street?"

Z listened to this song from beneath her covers before finally casting them off her face and saying, "Go straight down Boring Avenue and then take a left and you'll be on Sesame Street!"

Shocking. But you know, she never really liked Sesame Street, even as a baby.

And it got her out of bed. Tomorrow: It's a wonderful day in the Neighborhood.

Parental Miscalculation

M daughter A wakes up in the night screaming because of her bookshelf. She says it looks like a wolf that's coming toward her. She knows it's a bookshelf, but still reacts that way. Sometimes I drape a blanket over it. Here's what happened the other night.

A: Dad, the pink blanket fell off the bookshelf.

Me: I'll put this Tinkerbell blanket up now.

A: Maybe it will look like Captain Hook is coming after me!

Me: I don't think so. It's mostly blue.

Z (chiming in from her bed next to A's and not afraid at all, she just wants to make trouble): Now it will look like blue wolves coming after you.

A: There's no such thing as blue wolves.

Z: Maybe they fell into a can of paint. That would be funny.

(Concerned about how she is goading her sister, in a split second I miscalculate and say) Me: I'm sure that those blue wolves would go after Z first because she is laughing at them.

Z (her eyes widening in terror): But maybe they would understand I was laughing because it really was pretty funny.

Me: *Sigh.* Kids. There are no wolves in your bedroom. No blue wolves, no wolves of any kind.

Z: Now I'm scared, too.

Parenting With Matt 101: Pop Quiz

Imagine for a moment that you have taken your children to the Ogden Eccles Dinosar Park. You are taking a break on the drive from Colorado to Washington.

As you come around a dark corner you find that you have entered a dark side room where an animatronic tyrannosaurus rex is attacking a triceratops and her two babies. There are loud roaring sounds, the dinosaurs are moving around and baring their various pointy parts at one another in a threatening way.

Your children (let's just imagine they are little girls, aged 4 and 6) are frightened. You point out to them that the dinosaurs are not real, but that doesn't help. You point out that the enclosure has what appears to be an electrical fence separating you and the children from the dinosaurs. You point out that the pterodactyls "flying" in the background are not moving, which proves that they are fake.

None of this works.

So you finally say, "They are not real dinosaurs. They are robots and they won't hurt you."

This seems to calm them. In fact, a little while later they ask to go back to see the robots.

Multiple Choice Question: You have just made a horrible mistake as a parent. What is it?

A) Maybe they really were dinosaurs. How close did you actually get to the fence?

B) Dinosaurs, now extinct, should not be feared. Robots, however, still exist and could stage a revolt in which they destroy humankind. You've taught your children to fear dinosaurs and love robots. You are a traitor to the human race.

C) Now your kids will want a robot of their own.

D) You will now be forced to constantly refer to anything frightening as "a harmless robot." For instance, "Daddy, I think that mean dog is going to bite me." "Honey, that dog is a robot. It would never bite you."

E) The baby triceratops probably heard you and now has low self esteem, thinking that it is not a scary dinosaur. This is precisely the sort of weakness that makes for an excellent T-rex snack.

F) Everyone knows that the T-rex and the triceratops were in different paleolithic eras.

G) Good grief, man! What if your children mistake an enormous crocodile for a "robot" and try to saddle and ride it?

BONUS: True or False. When you find the "fossilized poop" section of the museum you should run to find your wife and kids so that they can see million-year-old excrement.

quarantined!

Today our church had a "teddy bear picnic" where the kids were able to go and take a stuffed animal for a morning of crafts and snacks.

(WARNING: I am about to tell stories about throwing up. If such things offend or sicken you, either don't keep reading or at least turn your head away from the keyboard.)

Except that poor little A started the morning by puking all over herself, so she didn't get to go. It was, as puke stories go, a pretty good one. She was lying on the couch and I could hear her retching and I said, "SIT UP!" but she didn't and she puked on her own face. I felt simultaneously sorry for her and, I must admit, I thought it was sort of funny when she shouted "I got some in my own eye!" as I carried her off to the bathroom.

One of the things you quickly learn as a parent is that vomit is not as bad as you always thought it was. God has created the parenting experience to slowly teach you this. It starts with "spit up" which is another way of saying that the baby is puking up milk. But as puke goes it's pretty inoffensive.

Then one day you are across the room from your kid and you see that she's about to puke. And this bizarre urge takes hold of you to run toward her into firing range, to scoop her up and carry her to a place within the house that will be easier to clean. In fact, if you know it's too late to get her to a toilet, a sink, or some other surface made of porcelain, you cup your hands and try to get as much of the puke as possible onto yourself. The reasoning in the parental brain says, "I could spend hours cleaning vomit from that couch, or ten minutes cleaning it off myself." And this, so near as I can tell, is right thinking.

Anyway, when that magic moment finally happens, when you leap toward your child and let them slather their undigested giblets all over you, something wonderful happens. The Barf Fairy appears and says, "Now you are a True Parent." It's a nice feeling, and in the moment all you really think about is how bad your kid feels. You're sticky, and you stink, and that's okay if for one minute you could make your poor little girl's stomach ache go away.

Of course this is all followed with a great deal of showering in water too hot for a human being to touch on a normal day, and a lot of laundry. This is also followed with the dim certainty that you, yourself are now fated to be sick.

And you are right. One cannot entertain the Barf Fairy without receiving her kind attentions. She has hovered beside my bedside all this long day. Only this evening has she finally flittered away.

Fare thee well, dear Barf Fairy. I hope your journey to the next home is a safe and prosperous one.