Hop. In.

Easily one of my favorite lines from the Simpsons is from the casino episode in season 5. In the episode, Mr. Burns descends into a Howard Hughes-esque madness, during which he designs the Spruce Moose, an absurdly small aircraft that he believes is able to carry 200 people. In the end he orders Smithers to get in; when Smithers predictably hesitates, he pulls a gun and says, "I said, 'Hop. In.'"

It's absurdly funny, partly from the delivery of the line and partly due to the fantastic juxtaposition of being told at gunpoint to do something that is physically impossible.

This is relevant. I swear.

Lily is starting the phase where she's making us do things. Not really making in a bad way, but in pretty much a bad way. For example: the other day she brought me her baby and one of Abby's diapers and told me, "Diaper. Change."

The diaper is easily as big as the doll, if not a bit bigger. Still, I make do. "Okay, buddy," I tell her, and start to fashion a way to lash the thing to the baby. I've done this before and it's always been accepted by her.

"Nooo!" she tells me.

"...what?"

She pulls at the doll's onesie. "Off!"

"Oookay." Off comes the onesie, which is pretty tight and hard to get off. After a minute of wrangling under the extraordinarily close and frankly quite uncomfortably scrutinous gaze of my daughter, the baby is finally naked. I then wrap the comically large diaper around the doll, wrapping and sticking and taping where possible, until I'm holding a large wad of mangled diaper with a doll's head sticking out the top.

"Here you go. One baby with a fresh, non-poopy diaper."

"On! On!"

She's thrusting the doll's onesie in my face. There's no possible way I or anyone operating within the bounds of conventional physics could get that onesie back on.

"Sorry Lils, but that's not going back on."

"[whine], [grunt] Ooooooooon!"

"Lily, I can't do it. I can't!"

"Daddy!.....OOOONNNNN!" (she's almost still smiling here, but is starting to get really upset with me)

"Lily!!!!! Gaah! I CAN'T DO IT! (that comes out as Scotty from star trek in a weak attempt at getting a laugh, but it only enrages her more)"

"AAAAaaaaaaarrgghghhhhh!!! ON!"

"HOLY CRAP, LOOK THERE'S ELMO!"



...


...


..


"...Elmo?"

"Yup, right there in the toy box."

"Elmo!" (laughs and runs over to get him)

Disaster averted.

Day three hundred and fifty seven (8 days. The ocho!)

Playing with the water. Loves the water.

A good time with the light toy. According to Abby, touching it to our faces is a healing thing.

More water.

I like this one.