So our third kid, Shiva the Destroyer of Worlds, who is 3.5, has been chewing her fingertips (not her nails, the fingertips themselves) to the point they are often raw and chapped and torn and even bleeding.

This isn’t even during a month when we’ve been withholding food to promote discipline. She destroys all obstacles to her will without apparent effort, and I had her removed from that Obama Death Panel, so it’s probably not stress.

Has anyone else dealt with this particular bad habit in a kid? Can anyone suggest a remedy (like that foul-tasting stuff you put on fingers, or thumbs, to prevent thumb-sucking) that works? We can always break out the Skinner box, but I’m hoping for something that takes less effort. Thanks!

Move along, those looking for serious stuff, nothing to see here.

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I can write what is, all humility aside, the most effing brilliant post about federalism or free speech principles or some arcane point of law that has ever been blogged. It will take me hours of research and writing and thought.

But the traffic and links for that post will never, ever approach what we get for one of my “LOL my kids is funny” posts that took me five minutes of whimsy.

And that, in turn, will never get the traffic that we get every.single.freaking.day. from image search engines just because I labeled a picture of Dora the Explorer as Dora the Explorer in a throwaway post. [God, I hope those searchers are all little kids. Really I do.]

So I’ve decided that the blog is changing. It’s going to be called “My kid kicked me in the nads today”, and it’s going to be all cloyingly funny kid stories all the time, mostly culled from other people’s posts on Facebook. And every post will have a labeled image of a kid’s TV character. And of a naked eunuch, that being another preposterously popular image search.

So I’m saying the whole ambiance might change a bit.

I’m expecting my co-bloggers to change with me. Patrick will be expected only to write brilliant and incisive blog posts about deranged litigation and out-of-control public servants to the extent the impact five-year-olds saying clever things. Ezra will be expected only to write about how the imperialist state subjugates the working man to the extent the working man’s toddler shat in a Prada handbag or something. David will be expected only to write the worth-waiting-for artistic evaluations of Hummel figurines. Charles may only blog about consumer culture as it pertains to scrapbooking. And the rest may only continue to not blog about approved subjects.

Life with the demonically possessed three-year-old, part 1:

I am awakened at 4:30 a.m. to strange sounds. I investigate. Three-year-old — whose blanket was taken away the night before for various crimes against our tranquility — has (1) defeated “child-proof” door knob on office, (2) dragged heavy high-chair all the way across the house from the dining room to the office and positioned it next to eight-foot cat climbing structure, and (3) scaled high-chair to attempt to retrieve blanket from top of cat climbing structure. Asked what she is doing, responds helpfully “Nothing!”

Part 2:

Upon my waking, three-year-old is found on couch, looking innocent. It appears she has opened the door to the atrium to let the cat out. How nice! Later investigation by wife reveals that three-year-old has actually (1) opened heaving sliding glass door, (2) successfully manipulated key to open locked door to garage, (3) poured out partial container of laundry detergent onto garage floor, (4) inserted car key into wife’s minivan and started van sufficiently to play with windshield-wipers, and (5) bored of this, returned to couch to look innocent.

Part 3, from this morning: I am awakened by repeated clicking sound. I get up and find hall bathroom light on. Three-year-old has (1) climbed onto sink, (2) retrieved boxed, sealed children’s Motrin from medicine cabinet, (3) removed plastic wrap from box, bottle from box, and tight and strong plastic wrapping from bottle, and (4) is attempting to defeat child-proof cap on bottle. Post-hoc analysis of clicking sound suggests that three-year-old has concluded that cap uses combination lock and is trying various combinations in effort to defeat lock. When confronted and asked what she is doing, three-year-old looks at bottle in hand, carefully places it on counter, then raises both arms to me and says “Daddy, I need to cuddle!” Subsequent protective sweep of bathroom reveals three-year-old has dismantled flush-handle on toilet. I require 15 minutes to determine how to re-assemble it.

Either she’s going to grow up to be a brilliant engineer, or she’s going to kill us all, possibly in our sleep.

Left: Destroyer of worlds. Right: Drama girl.

Edit: Greetings to our many visitors to this post. If you liked this, you might like my Conversations With Kids series.

According to the media, as reflected by Google News this week, they’re phenomenal.  So phenomenal that hot dogs must be banned, redesigned (which would make them hot dogs no longer, but rather mushy cubes of meat), or should carry warning labels similar to those found on packs of cigarettes:

Now if one simply scans Google News for information of this sort, one might assume that hot dogs kill as many children annually as lead paint on Chinese-manufactured toys.  In fact, one would be wrong.  Hot dogs kill a substantially greater number of children than Chinese lead-based paint. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, 77 children each year choke to death in a vain, futile effort to consume hot dogs:

[T]he academy would like to see foods such as hot dogs “redesigned” so their size, shape and texture make them less likely to lodge in a youngster’s throat. More than 10,000 children under 14 go to the emergency room each year after choking on food, and up to 77 die, says the new policy statement, published online today in Pediatrics. About 17% of food-related asphyxiations are caused by hot dogs.

“If you were to take the best engineers in the world and try to design the perfect plug for a child’s airway, it would be a hot dog,” says statement author Gary Smith, director of the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. “I’m a pediatric emergency doctor, and to try to get them out once they’re wedged in, it’s almost impossible.”

Yet it would appear, according to your own academy’s data Dr. Smith, that it’s ridiculously simple to dislodge a hot dog from a child’s windpipe.  If only 77 out of 10,000 children admitted annually die of hot dog inhalation, that’s far better than the rate for the most basic and treatable cancers, or indeed staphylococcus infections.

And yet there are far more than 10,000 children born each year.  According to the CIA World Factbook, the United States has an estimated population of 307,212,123, and a birth rate of 13.83 per 1,000 people.  That means, roughly, that 4,248,744 children are born each year. Out of those children, as well as those born earlier, “up to” 77 will choke to death on a hot dog.

The actual odds that your child will choke to death on a hot dog are therefore, roughly, one in 181,230.

Admittedly I’m not attempting to calculate the odds that the child will grow to adulthood only to die of hot dog inhalation.  Those odds, presumably, would increase overall hot dog morbidity.

Yet by comparison, according to Political Calculations, the odds are better that an American will die in a fatal lightning strike, but somewhat poorer (though still close) that he or she will die at the fangs of a household dog, or a snake.

So, what’s at work here?  Has there been a sudden onslaught of children killed by hot dogs?  That’s doubtful. Hot dogs are pretty much the same today as they were when you and I were growing up. Is there a real need for legislation, or regulation, or redesign, of hot dogs?

Or is there a need for better education on the part of American pediatricians, journalists, legislators, and the public at large, in statistics and actuarial math?

Update: A commenter points out a reading error on my part.  While up to 77 children die annually of food asphyxiation, only 17% of food asphyxiation hospital admissions are caused by hot dogs.  According to our commenter, that means only 13 or so children are killed by hot dogs each year, if the percentages of deaths and admissions hold true.

I’m not willing to make that assumption.  To be fair to the American Academy of Pediatrics, I’ll assume that all children killed by food-related asphyxiation in the United States are killed by hot dogs, and that other foods never kill.

The scene: as with so many such discussions, my car. Katrina is away at a party with the youngest. Tasked to take Evan (8) and Abby (6) to dinner, I have employed promises of shrimp and crab to persuade them to have their first Japanese meal.

Me: Okay. So Daddy will have some octopus. You guys can have shrimp tempura. And maybe some sushi. Maybe with some crab.

Abby: Daddy?

Me: Yes?

Abby: How do they kill the crab?

Me: Hand-to-hand combat.

Abby: Huh?

Evan. No. That’s not how you kill a crab.

Me: OK. How do you?

Evan. You grab it by the leg. And then you smack it against the wall again and again. BANG BANG BANG.

Me: ….

Evan: Or you could go into a small, small room. Then you could hit the crab on one wall — BANG! — and then on the other wall — BANG! until it was dead.

Me: Okay. You have now officially creeped me the heck out.

Evan: [thrusting arms above his head] WOOOOOOO VICTORY!

Me: …

Abby: Daddy? Do you know how they kill an octopus?

Me: . . . . . no?

Abby: WITH A BAZOOKA! KAPOOOOOOSSHHSSHSHS!

Me: Okay, no more cartoons.

Ingmar Bergman’s thoroughly enjoyable 1975 movie version of Mozart’s The Magic Flute is in Swedish and necessary takes liberties with the German libretto. Further liberties are taken with the English subtitles. In the first act, when the Three Ladies cut Papageno some slack and unlock his lying mouth, the subtitles have them singing this:

The strong are different than the weak, in that they think before they speak.

Quite true. Look, everyone has Microsoft moments when their brain experiences the blue screen/red ring of death and shuts down. The difference between people who avoid (on the petty scale) embarrassing themselves or (on the large scale) getting themselves into bad trouble is that sensible people shut up until their brain reboots. This is part of the sensibility informing my favorite advice to clients, which is: when in doubt or confusion or stress or trouble, shut up.

Amusing case in point: yesterday Katrina was at a book fair with the kids. A mother meets her, and asks which kids are hers. Katrina points out Abby, who is obviously Asian. Other Mother looks perplexed; you can see the Microsoft Blue Screen of Death reflected in her eyes. Is she Korean, she asks? Yes, says Katrina. Is your husband Asian, she inquires? No, says Katrina, thus ignoring my standing offer (diamond tennis bracelet if she answers that question “I don’t know, it was dark”). Further confusion on expression of Other Mother, who then ignores my advice and keeps talking through the brain freeze — looking at my very white, very Northern-European-origin wife, she asks “are YOU Korean?”

Katrina was very polite to her and explained at this point that Abby was adopted. The brain rebooted. Katrina scrupulously avoided eye-rolling or laughter, displaying merely one of the traits that makes her a better person than I.

So: shutting up, it’s not just for clients any more.

[Note that I am fully aware I routinely fail to follow my own advice.]

The scene: my car, taking Elaina (2 1/2) to preschool.

Me: [observing a driver ahead of me execute a boneheaded move]: Whiskey. Tango. FOXTROT.

Elaina: WHISKEY!

Me: . . . .

Elaina: WHISKEY!

Me: Uh . . .

Elaina: Daddy, why you say WHISKEY?

Me: Uh . . . let’s sing. “I love you, you love me . . .”

[five minutes later, we walk into her preschool class]

Me: Okay, sweetie. Have a good day.

Teacher: Good morning, Elaina! Do you want something to eat?

Elaina: WHISKEY!

Teacher: . . .

Elaina: WHISKEY!

Teacher: Uh . . . .

Me: RISKY. She’s trying to say risky. She’s concerned that it’s risky being so close to the fires.

Teacher: [melting] Oh, poor Elaina! Don’t worry! You’ll be okay! You don’t have to worry!

Elaina: [Ever a drama queen, very adept at picking up tone, begins to pout her lip and quiver her chin]: Whiiisssskey. ::sniff::

Teacher: [heartbroken] Oh, sweetie! You’re fine! You’re fine!

Me: So, OK. I gotta go.

I’ve mentioned before that I have an unstable relationship with the shows my kids enjoy watching. As they have gotten older, I am forced to admit that some amuse me and are not entirely intolerable. Phineas and Ferb is clever and has big chunks of dialogue and visual gags aimed over the kids’ heads. Plus I laugh at the imbecilic expression on Percy the Platypus’ face whenever he is posing as a normal non-secret-agent pet. And whoever voices the evil Prof. Doofenshmirtz is brilliant. In a similar vein, the Jimmy Neutron cartoon has a lot of quite funny gags aimed at adults.

The rest remains execrable. I do not hit children. However, should I ever be digitized or otherwise consigned to the world of cartoons, I shall promptly seek out Caillou and slap him so hard that my handprint will show up on his driver’s license photo. And the mewling treacle-peddlers that surround Miss Spider make me reach for a big magnifying glass. Plus, any time there’s a commercial for any live-action tween shows on the Disney Channel, I long for the days of reform schools.

I’m wondering because iconoclasm and heresy abound in my SUV, and my efforts to steer it back towards orthodoxy only make things worse, as I’ve demonstrated before. The thing is, I’m not even sure if my church excommunicates. I suppose as a deacon I ought to know that, but I don’t, which is really further evidence of the problem when you think about it. I’m at least relatively certain that I can’t personally excommunicate anyone, and my desultory research into whether I am empowered to exorcise has been flat, stale, and unprofitable. But to get back to my original point, I think my SUV is some sort of cursed locus of heresy, because every now and then when I am driving the kids places they nail ninety-five theses of hot-place-bound blasphemy to my forehead. Like this Sunday:

Evan (8 years old): Daddy, I think Jesus was born 2009 years ago.

Abby (6 years old): Nuh-UH! You’re making that up!

Me: Well, more or less. A little bit more, actually. More like — uh — 2014 years.

Evan: Wait, what? It’s 2014? Oh NO!

Elaina (2 years old): ‘ESUS!

Me: No. You’re on the right track. We count the years from when Jesus was born. But the count is sort of off, because some monk fu . . . because some monk made a math mistake.

Abby: Like a chipmunk?

Evan: (offended) CHIPMUNKS. CAN’T. DO. MATH.

Elaina: HIPMUNK HIPMUNK HIPMUNK HIPMUNK. Where?

Me: No. Not a chipmunk. A monk, m-o-n-k. Someone who . . . uh . . . writes stuff down. He mixed up the dates.

Evan: Why didn’t Jesus tell the monk that he got His birthday wrong?

Me: . . . I’m guessing . . . he didn’t want to make him feel bad?

Evan: That’s nice.

Me: Anyway, so Jesus was probably actually born in . . .

Evan: WAIT. Isn’t Jesus God?

Me: Yeessss . . . .

Evan: But I thought God was God. If Jesus is God, who is God?

Me: Okay, see, that’s complicated. Jesus is God’s son, but Jesus is also . . .

Evan: . . . an’ if Jesus was born 14 years ago, when was God born!

Abby: GOD wasn’t BORNED! (rolling eyes)

Me: Right, God wasn’t born, God was always . . .

Evan: But was Jesus born? Because Christmas is Jesus being born, right?

Me: (seeing the trap, unable to escape it) Right . . . .

Evan: So if Jesus is God . . . and Jesus was born . . .

Me: Okay, okay, okay, okay, I see where you’re going with that. But Jesus is . . . uh . . . just one aspect of God.

[silence]

Abby: I thought that was a bad word.

Evan: Like BUTT!

Elaina: BUTT BUTT BUTT BUTT BUTT

Me: [panicking]: WOW! LOOK! A doggy! Everyone LOOK AT THE DOGGY! HI, DOGGY! [waiving manically at woman walking dog down street, who looks alarmed]

Today I spent the morning at Downtown Disney. I went in as a small-l libertarian capitalist. Now I think I’m a Marxist. I’m pretty sure I need a new wardrobe; this button-down stuff won’t work at all. Downtown Disney is a hub of ravenous naked commerce that would make Adam Smith shit himself.

Today was Abby’s sixth birthday, so much of the morning was taken up with her visiting the Bippity Boppity Boutique at the Disney store for a princess makeover. Now, though I support full formal and legal equality for women, I am not generally seen as a feminist, nor have I ever been, with the exception of a period in college where I pretended to be one for distinctly un-feminist reasons. But the whole Disney Princess thing rubs me the wrong way. First, it’s a way to re-brand and re-sell Disney’s old properties to kids. Second, I’m not sure I like the message it sends to my daughters. Even if Disney movies — at least the modern ones — have fairly brave female leads showing initiative and purpose, the Disney Princess branding is mostly about being decorative and well-behaved. Screw that. I want my daughters to kick ass and take names on whatever playing field in life they choose, and only be decorative and decorous to the extent it amuses them.

Abby emerged from the Boutique made up like Princess Jasmine, with poufed-up hair, makeup, and lots of glitter. She looked extremely cute and was very happy. I told her she was beautiful and didn’t act like a grump. But inside, I was thinking that no one with glitter in her hair ever made a crucial cross-examination or convinced the Board of Directors to move forward with the IPO or transplanted the kidney successfully. Honestly, I didn’t used to dwell on that sort of thing much. That’s what having daughters will do to you.

The scene: a park, where I am watching Evan (now 8 ) play his first T-ball game of the season (one home run, two doubles, seven outs as first baseman) while Abby (now 5) and Elaina (now 2) play in the grass next to a wash.

Then suddenly:

ELAINA: FUCKS!

ME: . . .

ELAINA: FUCKS FUCKS!

ME: I beg your pardon.

ELAINA: FUCKS!

ME: Surely this is your mother’s influence.

ABBY: She means ducks. We see ducks.

ME: Really?

ELAINA: DUCKS!

So we go see the ducks. The ducks, I note, quickly waddle away in the trickle of water across the wash when the girls approach the fence.

ME: (suspiciously) Were you being nice to the ducks?

ABBY: (indignant) Yes!

ELAINA: Yes!

ME: Really? You were being nice?

ABBY: Yes! We threw sticks at them!

This is justly all over the web, but it would be a shame if you, personally, did not witness the breakup of New York University’s student revolution in all its embarrassing glory.

For those unaware, student demonstrators and “outside agitators” recently took over a cafeteria at NYU, barricading themselves into the place until their demands for social justice, workers’ rights, and the reconstruction of Gaza were met.  The affair ended in farce, as polite administrators and school security casually, and gently, removed the barricades over the objections of the screaming, utterly ineffectual, and comically inept demonstrators.  The only similarity between NYU and Port Huron is that Jeff Lebowski was probably present at both events.

Highlights include the NYU cameraman shouting, “You may not use brutality, you are on camera!” to security personnel as they are walking away from him (and later turn a camera on him), his patronizing question, “We are engaged in a process of democratic consensus. Do you understand what that means?”, references to non-existent TASERs as “Devices of force! Devices of force!” and his explanation that his oppressors probably drink “corporate water.”

I also quited enjoyed his calling every piece of technology in sight a “MacBook” as though it never occurred to him that some electronic devices aren’t made by Apple.

This video is truly pathetic, and deserving of the viral status that it is already beginning to enjoy.