I’ve got a little bit of a cold. OK. It’s a really bad cold that would have normal men laid up in bed and crying out for Chicken Soup. But that’s not how I roll.

So I wrapped myself in a blanket and sat myself down on the couch, brave soldier that I am. My three year old obviously saw an opportunity in my illness because she left the room and bounced back wearing nothing but underwear. This is not atypical. If she sees any opportunity to go all Mogli she takes it.

So I say to her in my stern but stuffed up voice, “Go get your clothes on.”

My darling three year old looked at me as if this was the first time I’d ever said anything like this. The poor dear actually looked shocked. I’ll admit my voice sounds a little funny from being so stuffed up but I mustered the strength to repeat myself. “Go get your clothes on.”

She stood still, looking at me as if I’d just uttered the craziest thing she’d ever heard in her three long years on this planet.

Then I unleashed my “Now” which clearly indicated I meant business. She plodded off into the front room looking over her shoulder at me, not only as if I’d grown a second head but as if my second head were singing Ethal Merman tunes in Spanish. And then I heard her rustling around in the front room. It sounded like she was taking things apart but like I said I was busy feeling sick on the couch.

After five minutes she walked back into the room. I looked up at her and there was my three year old, still in her underwear but wearing two gigantic “claws” from her brother’s Wolverine costume. “Dad, I got my claws on,” she announced proudly.

It hurt to laugh hard. But I did anyway. She simply looked confused in her underwear and claws.