Spending time with my youngest son is much like riding a roller coaster. He moves so quickly from “Poley” to “Cusser” it can make one’s head spin. Maybe it’s because he’s two?

Yesterday, I got a phone call. The excited little voice on the other end of the phone was trying to tell me he used the potty for the first time. He quickly explained, “Daddy. I went peeps in the potty.” And then, perhaps thinking the momentous occasion required additional explanation said, “In the potty.” “Peeps.” and other remixes of the first phrase over and over.

I was excited for him too, but facing a terrible, awful, no good day and fearing he would not soon meet the end of his creative editing I asked to speak with his mother. “I should probably take him to the store to get a prize.” I told her. This was a tradition we’d accidentally started with our oldest boy when trying to encourage his potty training. (I think we actually bought several prizes for him).

So this evening my and Poley headed over to “Our Super Target,” as he calls it, to pick out his prize. He was a happy, chirpy little man the next 30-minutes or so while we talked about his grand achievement and searched for a suitable prize – a Thomas the Tank Engine video (with a “free” wooden engine).

After we left the store I made a detour to get my wife a pregnancy treat – an ice cream shake. And not wanting to leave her eating it alone I got one for myself. I didn’t take but 30 seconds for my passenger in the back seat to realize he didn’t get an ice cream prize. Poley quickly turned into Cusser, and his chirpy, chatter into solemn silence.

At home, his attitude seemed quickly forgotten. He showed his prize to his brothers and sister while sharing in my milkshake, and then he disappeared downstairs to play with his new toy. But the slurping noise announcing last call from my cup brought him bounding upstairs to complain, “Dad! You ate all the ice cream!”

Though I offered him his own bowl of ice cream, and even the very last sips of my shake, nothing would turn him from his disappointment,. His last words to me as he stomped upstairs, “Dad. I’m going to bed. You ruined my ice cream.”