All afternoon my nephew Gage kept telling me he wanted to play with the crocodile that his younger brother Cole got for Christmas. Unfortunately, the crocodile was already packed away for the trip home and we were not going to unpack everything just so he could play with it. Brilliant aunt that I am, I pretended that I had no idea about the Christmas present crocodile and instead got out the Crocodile Dentist game in my parent's game closet (are you following me with all the crocodiles roaming the Baumgartner house? I could mention the pet crocodile my dad had when he was a kid, but that might just confuse the issue...)
So I pull the Crocodile Dentist game out of the closet and put it on the carpet for Gage to play with. The gyst of the game is this: you put the plastic teeth in the plastic crocodile and pull its teeth out one-by-one with these little plastic pliers. If the crocodile closes its mouth while you're pulling (or should I say extracting) a tooth, you lose. (And yes, I think this game must have been invented at the North Pole by Hermey the "I always wanted to study dentistry" Elf).
Gage looks at me and says "I need gloves Aunt Diana" and I have absolutely no idea what he's talking about. The house was warm, so no need to wear them for warmth. The plastic teeth are pretty easy to pull out--it's not like the pliers are going to give a 3 year old callouses or require work gloves for protection. So being thoroughly confused I tell Gage that we don't have any gloves...and luckily he was easily distracted and moved onto playing with something else.
A few hours later Gage again asks for the crocodile and I again suggest that he play with Crocodile Dentist and he again informs me that he needs gloves and I am again thoroughly confused. Lucky for me my brother Lans (who I think wins the award for the best daddy ever) is in earshot this time, runs out to the car, and comes back in with a little plastic bag that my dad's assistant Karla gave Gage that morning when he visited my Dad's office.
And suddenly Gage's request for gloves made complete sense:
As a side-note I think my favorite quote of the day was: "I'm going to the dentist. Do you know the dentist's name? (long pause) PAPA!"
