Free Dad Is Fat by Jim Gaffigan

symbolically, like, “Oh, here’s what the client’s wife thinks.” She is
the
partner. This is very rare in stand-up, so people are surprised that she is executive-producing my theater shows while being the mother of five kids. “Shouldn’t your wife be home fat and miserable?”

    We made that quilt together, too
.
    Jeannie comes from a family of nine kids, and she and her mother have really bonded over the trials and tribulations of being in this awe-inspiring position of mother. There is a certain language that only mothers can understand. They talk all the time on the phone, usually having the same five-minute conversation over and over again for like eight hours. When they aren’t talking, I assume it’s because Jeannie’s lost her phone.

Toddlerhood
    Toddlerhood is one of my favorite periods of childhood development, and not just because you can finally enter them in beauty pageants. (Don’t worry, they do get used to the fake teeth.)
Toddler
is a term used to describe children ages one to three. Babies and toddlers are mostly what I’ve been exposed to at this point. I’m hoping parenting just gets much easier after this. It does, right? I know this is a book and I can’t hear you, but I’m going to take your silence as a yes.
    I used to wonder why I had hair on my legs, but now I know it’s for my toddler sons and daughters to pull themselves up off the ground with as I scream in pain. Based on my experience, a baby will start walking at around eleven months … I think. Oh, jeez, I don’t remember. I just know they start walking before they ride a bike and start smoking. All healthy babies eventually walk, but we treat those first steps like someone has just risen out of a wheelchair at a healing revival. “He’s
walking
! It’s a miracle!”
    I guess walking is sort of impressive after ten months of just lying around. Actually, they don’t immediately walk or even toddle. They “cruise” or hold themselves up with furniture in search of the hardest and sharpest surface to bang their head on. When they finally let go and take a few steps, it’s more of a stumble or a stagger, like they are a drunken old man or a zombie extra from
The Walking Dead
.
    What amazes me is that once they actually learn to walk, they are immediately trying to get away. You just say, “Time for a bath!” and they scoot away like they have an escape car outside. I don’t know where they think they are going. They can’t even reach the doorknob. I am always like, “What are you doing? You only know
us
! Think it through!” They’ve only been on the planet for twelve months, and they can’t really go stay with a friend or check into a motel, but that doesn’t stop them. It doesn’t matter if they don’t have a plan. They are just trying to leave.
    Once your baby starts to walk you’ll realize why cribs are designed like prisons from the early 1900s. This is clearly because toddlers are a danger to themselves. The main responsibility for a parent of a toddler is to stop them from accidentally hurting or killing themselves. They are superclumsy. If you don’t believe me, watch a two-year-old girl attempt to walk up stairs in a long dress. It looks like a Carol Burnett sketch. Also, toddler judgment is horrible. They don’t have any. Put a twelve-month-old on a bed, and they will immediately try and crawl off headfirst like a lemming on a mindless migration mission. But the toddler mission is never mindless. They have two goals: find poison and find something to destroy.
    Toddlers love toilet paper. I mean, I love toilet paper, too—who doesn’t? Even the most devout conservationist can’t live without their toilet paper. “Reuse! Recycle! Wait … What? We’re out of toilet paper? Chop down that forest! Fast!” But toddlers love toilet paper for all the wrong reasons. They have no idea what it is for or how to use it, but they are passionate about a nice, big, fresh roll of toilet paper. They love