"Which tennis shoes would you like to wear to school today? Gray or brown?"

"Did you just ask her who she's voting for in November?"

"No. John McCain isn't gray, stupid."

I have a niece. Well, I have a bunch of nieces, actually. But there's this one in particular. She's four.

Her brain is a magical place where words go in, rattle around and, like those million monkeys sitting at typewriters, come back out as miniature gems of priceless comedy. Which is why I always go out of my way to teach her new ones.

Take Friday, for example. The niece was at our house for a few hours while her parents ran some errands. Some time after I was done chasing her around the house and forcing her to admit that I was her favorite uncle, she informed me that, according to her mother, "pooh and pee are bad words."

Our daughter is a big fat liar.

In fact, I'm going to start calling her wikipedia because if she tells you something, and you cite her as the source in your book report. Your teacher will write on your paper, in big red marker, "please use reliable sources for important work".

Whenever she answers a question like, say, "did you clean your room" or "who broke this wall into a hundred-thousand pieces" or "were you the one who licked all the graham crackers", my instinct is to click her history tab and check to see if the most recent contributor has a history of fact-vandalism.

You know how it would be really cool to have a time machine? Like, you could totally go back before you had kids and hang around the house in your underwear and drink beer or, you know, go to the demolition derby or a bar on a Sunday. Back before your mom lived in your basement. Back before your wife stopped wearing panties in exchange for full-time cotton long-johns.

Guess what? Someone invented that machine and this past weekend, Donna and I went back in time. It was like a magic spell had been cast on as I watched my mom's car disappear around the corner with with the kids crammed into the back seat like lobster in a cage. One of those magic spells that lasts one whole week.

Before the garage door even closed behind them I had my pants off. I NEVER get to spend time without my pants on. What with the house full of girls and my mom. I'm a boxers man and sometimes there's, you know, gapping. But this week, it just doesn't matter. So... in this house, this week, no pants. It's a rule, in fact.

I need a favor. Can you, real quick, go read every post on this site and tell me which ones I need to delete?

Earlier today, I was checking out my server logs and noticed a couple of referrals from Google searches for "ur mom's a nice piece of lettuce". Interesting. Then I noticed the IP address of the visitor. I mean, I recognized the IP address.

It's my home IP address. I knew Donna wasn't at home. A quick glance at my IM buddy list confirmed what I already knew. My oldest daughter, Megan, was online. The Google search was hers.

Some of you will be angry at me for what I'm about to tell you. If this makes you angry, let me know so I can come take a crap in your family room and see how you react. If that's no big deal to you, I can come back once or twice a week for six or seven years and leave a present for you in the corner of your kid's room and another under your bed.

This morning, when the dog did her business right in the middle of the front room, it was the last straw. Actually, a couple years ago, right after we moved into the new house and the dog decided to make a habit of welcoming all our new neighbors by biting them on the Achilles tendon. That was the last straw.

Understand something. We love animals. That's why we adopted the dog in the first place. We rescued her from the pound, cleaned her up and welcomed her into our family. But I couldn't exaggerate this, she has been just too much to handle. And admitting that makes me feel like a failure. Like there's more I could have done.

Heather Armstrong didn't ask me to write a guest post while she's on vacation. She didn't offer me Hooters French fries either. I'm sure the writers she actually DID invite to write for her are, you know, actual writers. In fact, I don't even actually know Heather. Unless you count that one time she told me right to my face that she thought I would be old, fat and bald. She obviously had me mistaken for someone else.

But if I did know her and if she had asked me, I would probably write some kind of lame advice about parenting daughters. And it would go something like this.

Growing up I only had brothers. This put me at a significant disadvantage when it came to just about everything important. Unless you count knocking each others' teeth out during Japanese typhoons among important life-skills. So, having no other experience with girls, I was easily deceived by the likes of Louisa May Alcott, Jane Austen and Lucy Maud Montgomery. I was tricked into thinking that daughters would be either be one-dimensional people, driven only by social-status and the need to be married to wealthy, handsome, men of status as quickly as humanly possible or precocious scamps on a relentless pantsuit-wearing pursuit to gain a foothold in the mens' club of big publishing. With red hair.

You may remember that despite being the freaking awesomest dance partner in the world, I'm actually a really bad and neglectful father. As always, it's a good thing the children managed to eek out some decent skills anyway. Probably stuff they learned from the wild animals that roam the neighborhood and help them with their homework.

The exact moment the snow melted, Beth started begging me to put together a Frankenstein bike from the tattered carcasses of the sad and broken hand-me-down bikes collecting dust in the corner of the garage. As the youngest she usually has to pick at the scraps her older sisters leave for her. This also means that sometimes after all the recitals and lessons and games and errands take up the day, there's only time left for a little malt liquor and then bedtime.

There's been no time to put a bike together yet, let alone teach her to ride it. So what did the little fart go out and do yesterday? She opened up the drawer marked wrenches, pulled out the number fifteen, took the training wheels off one of the bike zombies, strapped on some pads and a helmet, got on that bike and rode it like a pro.

Friday, when I said tomorrow, I meant today.

I'm not going to spoil this with a lot of commentary. I think the video speaks for itself.

I'm the second dad from the left. That's stage right for those of you who've ever treaded the boards. And yes, the first twenty-seven seconds are video of a dark stage... but listen to the ladies scream. Pure gold.

The love for my children is infinite. It knows no bounds.

I know. Vomit.

I've never found the limits of my love for them... but I can see the edge from here.