I was taking a bath with Hobbes and watching while the boy busily filled a hollow octopus toy with bathwater and guzzled it down. Again. And again.

“Really?” I said. “Really? Bath water?”

He peered up at me and swallowed another little bowl of lukewarm water. Drinking from actual bowls and cups is a new [...]

“God. Mom’s down pillows are literally the beaks, and the claws.” She crunched one demonstratively. “They hurt.”

So she threw it at me.

“Do you want to take your shower now?” I asked the sprog.

“No,” he said. If there is one word he can be said to have mastered, it is that one. No. Also, more, though I don’t give him credit for that one because he skips the latter half of the word and more or [...]