I was just showing Ethan how the Greeks do it

One of the most vital skills to master as a parent is the Holding Baby, Active Arm pose. This is where the child is held against you with one increasingly lactic-acid-laden arm, leaving the other arm free for action.

Ethan, regardless of the level of babyproofing here at the in-laws house, will find a way to subvert all safety measures. You will recall from last week that Ethan knows exactly which cabinets contain highly breakable or dangerous items. But even if Ethan isn't finding the Guillotine Cupboard, he's finding other things: a glass of water to soak the carpet and all furniture in a surprisingly large soak radius, a miniature dust+hair+old food living room tumbleweed that is as irresistible as several tons of plankton to a whale, magazines that apparently look far better trampled on the floor than arranged neatly on a table, or pretty much any object that he is just one precarious step away from falling onto, at best creating a hilarious story and at worst a life-altering injury that we will Always Regret.

Therefore, much of Ethan's time is spent being carried around. I took Ethan to the kitchen to get him some water, like a good father does. I spotted his durable-looking The Very Hungry Caterpillar cup that only comes as part of an expensive set which I am not mentioning for any foreshadowing purposes whatsoever and picked it up with my free hand. I have very successfully done tasks with my free hand whilst holding Ethan, from julienning carrots to boisterous badminton, so I had every right to assume that this simple operation would go as smoothly as the rest. I certainly did not anticipate that I would not so much pick up the cup as launch it across the kitchen. The cup entered into what is known as a Shattery Death Plummet, a well-documented scientific phenomenon wherein an object that you would have very much preferred stayed intact travels at such speed and trajectory that it very much does not. Yet, during the descent, time is altered in such a way that you can make one final memory of your object, intact, helpless to do anything else. The Very Hungry Caterpillar Cup That Only Comes As Part of an Expensive Set broke into 3 jagged pieces and now can be used as Ethan's first jigsaw puzzle, I argued ineffectually to Sara, who asked that I replace the set.