The more cynical among us might say that the reason babies can be so smelly, cranky, and tough to figure out is because they’re cute. It’s like nature’s defense mechanism.

 

Likewise, toddlers can be cantankerous and stubborn because they’re hilarious.

 

Here’s living proof:

 

John recently got an iPad, and even more recently found an app that features both Elmo and the alphabet (can life get better?!). He showed me the game’s stats the other night after Jacob had been playing. We can’t figure out how to pull a screen shot (though Jacob probably could), but here’s what it said:

 

Times letter c was selected: 8

Times cookie was selected: 17

 

That’s my boy.

 

* * *

 

On Saturdays, we light a candle at church before Our Lady of Guadalupe, for whatever intention we’ve been praying for that week. The “candles” are electronic; you push a button on top and the light flickers realistically for about twenty-four hours. Jacob, of course, gets to put the dollar offering in the box and then gets to choose and light the candle. After that’s done, we all say a Hail Mary together.

 

Last week, in the midst of our Hail Mary, Jacob wandered just a step or two to the side of the candle structure. Next thing we knew all the candles were dark. We quickly found the switch and turned it back on, but the system does not have any kind of memory. We lit as many as we thought were lit before, said an extra prayer, giggled, and moved on.

 

* * *

 

Jacob talks a lot these days. He speaks as sincerely as he can, but by no fault of his own, sometimes things he says are just not true, like when he tells me stuff Henry “sometimes” does. (I wish I had an example, but I’m blanking.)

 

Two weeks ago, he was saying “all over the place” when he spilled something: “chicken all over the place”, “crumbs all over the place”, when there might be one dropped piece of chicken or three crumbs from a muffin. That exaggeration, I’m sure, is something he learned from me.

 

Where he got his newest phrase is more of a mystery. Every day Jacob tells me about something that happened “last night.” This is odd in two ways: first, he rarely speaks in the past tense. He’ll talk about things that already happened, but the verbs he uses are all in the present. Second, none of the things he says actually happened the night before. For a while, I thought he meant, “yesterday”, but that theory’s been disproven as well.

 

“I go church last night.” (We go to church in the morning.)

“I eat sausage last night.” (We didn’t have sausage last night . . . or yesterday . . . or the day before.)

 

* * *

 

As we get more and more entrenched in toddlerhood, there are more and more instances like these to make me laugh. Maybe it’s a defense mechanism. Or maybe toddlers are just awesome little people.