He Just Gets Better with Age

The setting is bedtime. The mood is silly. The kid is curious.

Thing One: I'm gonna take my diaper off when you leave.

Me: Well, then you're going to sleep in a pee pee bed, because I'm not going to clean you up.

Thing One: Why wouldn't you clean me up?

Me: Because if you take your diaper off you'll have to (I know, I should've known) live with the consequences.

Thing One: Where do the Consequences live?

I assured Thing One that I wouldn't make him go live somewhere else for such a relatively trivial offense, and then commenced a protracted and somewhat winding explanation of consequences, with lots of false starts and colorful examples.

Like this one: Well, like if you're running with your milk and I tell you to stop and you don't, your milk would spill. That would be a consequence.

Thing One: No it wouldn't, because I would just do this--(places flattened hand securely on top of imaginary cup of milk, effectively creating a vacuum seal).

Me: Well...hmmm...

Thing One: Oooh I know, like if people run and they don't hold their hair, it might fall out, that would be a consequence!!

Me: Yup. Or how 'bout this: If you don't brush your teeth every day, they'll turn brown and fuzzy and fall right out of your mouth forever.

Thing One: And that would be a bad thing?