Top 10 Signs You Are a Father of Small Children

As anyone even remotely familiar with this blog knows, I am the father of four children, ranging in age from 7 to 2 (which somehow sounds a lot better than when they ranged in age from 5 years old to 6 months!). Nevertheless, apart from the rather obvious signs there are little people about (such as the fact that there are little people underfoot), I have been noticing some things which serve as daily, humorous reminders of the stage of life in which I find myself:

1. A window in your kitchen is covered with buttery handprints.
2. Your garage door is going up and down even though neither you nor your wife have touched the remote.
3. You find a half-eaten chicken nugget laying on the top of the toilet tank. (Which brings up another question: What part of a chicken is the nugget?).
4. To take a trip to the kitchen at night with the lights out is to take your life in your hands, because scattered about the floor are various animals, cars, Lincoln Logs, and blocks, the pointy parts of which will inevitably lodge in the tenderest portions of your feet, causing you to fall while stifling the urge to scream.
5. Your hairbrush disappears from your bathroom drawer only to reappear under the living room sofa a week later.
6. Every nook, cranny, and crevice of the family vehicle is filled with an assortment of McDonald's french fries, cheerios, Tic-Tacs, and other detritus.
   
7. Your find your toothbrush on one of the lower shelves of the the pantry, wet and freshly coated with food that you definitely don't remember eating.
   
8. You know what the current prize is in McDonald's Happy Meals.
9. You know all of the words to the themes from Elmo's World, Veggie Tales and Larry Boy.
10. You sure hope ketchup counts as a vegetable, because it's one of the only ones certain members of your family are regularly eating.