Lest you think that Lil’ Duck has grown out of his adventures, I offer you this, my afternoon. Today I had managed to get most of our Christmas cards into envelopes and nicely hand-write out all the addresses. They were sitting innocently on my countertop, awaiting their postage. It was too perfect…..

Enter Lil’ Duck. He insists on sitting atop my counters, regardless of the amount of yelling and punishing and hiding the instruments of climbing. Considering his grumpy mood post-nap and my almost-becoming-a-cold nastiness, I was happily ignoring his exploits as he was quietly playing with his cars up there. Then, the words I dread.

“Mama, uh-oh, poop, oh no, Mama, mess.”

“Did you poop in your diaper, baby??”

“No, Mama, ducky poopy, mess. Give me bath, please, nice bath, love bath, give me bath now!”

So, I go over to investigate. The diaper evidently acted as a fountain, from which to spray liberal amounts of poop all over the kitchen. Pampers will be getting a nice thank-you card for creating the amazing, poop-spewing diaper. Someone could be rich, inventing the first vacuum-sealed diaper. Alas, they all act as fountains.
My nicely addressed, ready-to-mail Christmas cards?? Every single envelope is now decorated liberally, he didn’t miss a single one, of course. The freshly washed Ducky?? Very brown. The cell phones, pens & other items on my countertop?? Forget about them.

So, Lil’ Duck goes in his beloved bathtub, everything else goes into the washing machine, including Ducky, and the cards sit and mock me. Lil’ Duck views this as a great improvement on the otherwise boring afternoon, as he is now able to turn his bathwater into a very large sprinkler. His supreme delight is to splash water across the length of the bathroom, over to where it splashes me out in the carpeted hallway,  then cackle with glee when I screech at him. I don’t even want to consider the ratio of water to poop in that water now being distributed all over my bathroom and hallway….

To add insult to the day, when I call the Daddy Duck to inform him of his son’s accomplishments, his primary concern is for…. his video game strategy guide. Yes, THAT would be what I’d be worried about, for sure (it was unharmed, along with my card orders and various products on the other side of the counter).

It’s a beautiful day.