Are all children full of piss and vinegar?

Two middle-aged women are chatting over vanilla chai in the kitchen. Ten-year-old Murphy is alone in the cream-tiled living room. The pumpkin muffins bakes in the oven.

Visitor Mom:  What's that sound?

Mom [unalarmed]:  Oh. Little Murphy is watering the plants in the living room again

[Visitor Mom leans over her chair and glances into the living room. Her face contorts, and she is flabbergasted.]

Visitor: I actually think he is peeing on the floor. 

I'm Thankful I have Lips

Could you imagine not having lips?  Not only could you not enjoy a tall Starbucks Pike’s Peak, you couldn’t sing Amazing Grace and whistle “Winn Dixie” (well, if you even know Winn Dixie).  You couldn’t blow a kiss to your little niece or plant a wet one on your beloved’s cheek.  Forget the times when outside on crisp, winter mornings in December, you would lick your lips and the icy wind would bite them.  

I am thankful that I have lips.  However, this amenity that is not often thought about is not even a reality for many children in the eastern African country of Uganda.  Now they only dream of slurping Coca-colas through a straw.  It’s not that these children were born without lips, but contrarily, their lips were violently seized from them by the machetes of guerrilla soldiers.