Pär baked a mushroom-potato au gratin dish this evening. It was quite tasty. Unfortunately, his cooking skills are considerably more evolved than his cleaning skills. An hour after he finished the dish, I went into the kitchen to get a glass of orange juice and nearly stepped on a small rounded greyish object on my way out. I approached Pär, who was sitting on the couch reading Tim Powers' Declare with Tot lying peacefully in his lap.

"I can't help but notice," I said, "that there's something in the middle of the kitchen floor that looks suspiciously like the top of a potato."

We both glanced toward the kitchen, where the small rounded object could be seen through the doorway. It was sitting there, conspicuous in an open space, looking very much like the sort of mushy ingredient that any civilized chef would have thrown away as soon as he'd dropped it.

"Oh. Right. It's the bottom of a portabello mushroom."

"Ah."

We nodded at each other with serene faces.

"I keep it there," he began solemnly, and then we both burst into laughter.

"I can't imagine the end of that sentence is going to be any funnier than the beginning," I said.

"It wasn't. That's why I stopped."

"What, you keep it there to honor the fallen wounded of World War One?"

"It was going to be something like that."

"As a reminder of man's fallibility, perhaps?"

Pär was distracted from our conversation by the baby in his lap, who was staring up at him with a wrinkled brow. "Look! Tot is trying to figure out the joke. He doesn't get it. What's so funny about keeping a mushroom on the floor?"

Tot did indeed look extremely perplexed. He waved his arms and legs around quietly.

"It was sort of subtle humor," I said. "There was no punchline or anything."

"Yeah, and it was kind of... internal humor," said Pär. "You'd have to be us, or at least to know us, to see how it was funny. In a few weeks, Tot will probably get it."

"We can start him off on slapstick. Sort of ease him into the concept of funny. I don't think Tot has much sense of humor yet."

"Well, he doesn't have much brain at all so far." Pär held onto one of the baby's little fists and waved it back and forth. "Tot, it occurs to me that you have a very small brain!"

"Hey!"

"It's true! How much can fit in there, a pint?" He looked at the baby, spoke directly to him in a happy voice. "I have two pints of brain!" He giggled with a kind of manic glee.

My jaw dropped. "I can't believe you're taking pleasure in the fact that you have more brain than your three week old son! Talk about a petty victory!"

"No, actually, wait." Pär muttered to himself while his forefinger made little writing motions in the air. "Pi r cubed... Ohmigod! I think Tot has only a cup of brain! He's so dumb!"

"Shut up!"

"No, it's okay; I'm just waiting for him to get smart."

"He's going to grow up and get smart and he's going to come kick your ass!"

"He won't remember this."

"I hope not."

"And you know why? Because he only has a cup of brain!"

"Goddamnit --!"

We were interrupted by an enormously loud gurgling sound from the baby. I forgot what I had been about to say as we both stared at Tot, who was now lying still in Pär's lap with a blissful post-poo expression on his face.

"I guess he told you," I said. "Small brain and all, he got the last word."

Pär stood up and carried the baby into the bathroom for a diaper change. I called after him, "Who's the dummy now, huh?"

As the bathroom door closed behind him, I heard a muffled "Goddamnit!"