Riding an Alligator in the Porcupine Forest

I got the chance to get Isaiah up and dressed this morning which was great. As he was laying on the changing table I was thinking about the shirt I was putting on him. While he was lost in some mental land where getting dressed is similar to having your toenails ripped out (evidenced by the fact that he was screaming at the top of his lungs the whole time I was dressing him) I was fighting a strong case of bewilderment. The source of my confusion came from what was printed on his shirt. It had a big picture of a smiling porcupine (who incidentally had his spikes sticking out, not laying down, so I guess he was very happy that the next person to touch him would be in extreme pain (great I'm teaching my kid that inflicting pain is great fun, pretty soon he'll be throwing rocks at the neighbors)) and the words "Porcupine Forest." Is this some great national park I've never heard of? I mean that's too random to just come from nowhere.

But then I started thinking about some of his other clothes. For instance, there's the shirt that says, "Little Boys are all About Sports." And this shirt is size 12 months. Now, Isaiah may be way behind all the other 12 month olds in the world, but at this point I would say his life is more about trying not to fall over when he walks, trying to whine enough that we'll take him outside, and pulling things out of cupboards than it is about sports.

Then there's my personal favorite. A shirt that has a car with a family in it and it says, "What's Behind the Car?" You lift up the car and there's a big smiling alligator. Of course! What else would be behind a happy family in a car but an alligator!

So here's to the amazing people who live in the porcupine forest where inflicting pain is fun, alligators run alongside cars smiling, and 12 months olds can dunk.