The other day I was out for a walk with the girls. Pushing Genevieve in the stroller, I had ventured just far enough ahead of Julia to start being a little bit uncomfortable with the distance. As if on cue, Julia shrieked, "Yook, Daddy! A porky-pine!" Probably the only thing that kept me from crapping my pants was the centrifugal force generated by doing an instantaneous about-face with my body, my consciousness, and the stroller. It was a brilliant situation: I was fifty feet away from my daughter at the very moment she found one of the few wild animals that could do grievous harm to her and that - bonus! - she finds interesting to read and talk about. (Try explaining "quills" to a toddler: it's like conversational crack.)
So I started racing back to her, pushing the stroller as fast as its little wheels could turn, then realized within a step or two that there was no way she was anywhere near a porcupine. And of course, she wasn't. This is what she was looking at.
Sighing in relief, I told her, "Honey, that's a pine cone, not a porcupine." She giggled. "Daddy, what did I say?" I said, "You said 'porcupine.' This is a pine cone." She giggled again. "Dat's funny!"