For some reason, Nate has been inordinately excited to do Mad Libs with the kids from the day they were born. Thalia could hardy say the word “noun” before he was stocking up on those little pads and dreaming of the day we could lie around filling in the blanks and making up high-LA-rious stories about visits to purple farms, petting curly elephants and windy llamas.

I am convinced he had his first sexual experience around Mad Libs. There is no other rationale, really.

And so…Mad Libs it is. Thalia loves them. It’s good clean fun. And it gets the TV off.

What we hadn’t counted on however is that Thalia, at 3 1/2, falls back on the same two or three words for each part of speech.

Verb: Flip

Adjective: Short, pink, flippy.

Noun: TV, lemonade, flip

Person in room: Mommy

Liquid: Lemonade

Exclamation: WOW! LOOK AT THAT PONYTAIL!

We haven’t gotten quite up to explaining adverbs yet. I know I could say “word ending in -ly” and help her fudge her way through it but I fear she’ll be a smart ass like my brother always was and answer Fly.