(I’m finishing up work in my basement office, when my wife and kids come home. My 4-year-old daughter comes directly down to me.)

Daughter: “Daddy, we have a situation!”

Me: *trying not to burst out laughing* “Oh, really? What is it?”

Daughter: “This.”

(She holds up a lid from a single serving ice cream container.)

Me: “Where’d you get that?”

Daughter: “Mommy’s car. I looked all over the car and I can’t find the ice cream anywhere!”

(She sighs heavily, tosses the lid onto the desk next to me and speaks casually.)

Daughter: “Well, now it’s your lid.”

(She walks away to go play.)

(My husband and I recently adopted a baby who has an adorable puff of red hair. We are both brunettes. At a family reunion, I overhear this conversation between my husband and a distant cousin.)

Cousin: “Man, you should look into a DNA test. I don’t think that kid is yours.”

(My husband, thinking it’s a joke, plays along. He has very distinctive ears.)

Husband: “Maybe you’re right. [My name] did get it around in high school, but [daughter’s name] has my ears.”

Cousin: “I didn’t see any nubs, man. Get that test; dump those two in the street!”

(At this point, he realizes his cousin is serious.)

Husband: “[Daughter’s name) is adopted, [wife’s name] can’t have kids, and she would never cheat on me. I think you should leave now, and stay away.”

Me: “I knew I married you for a reason.”

This story is part of our Terrible Cousins roundup!

Read the next Terrible Cousins roundup story!

Read the Terrible Cousins roundup!

(My son is asking why we can’t have any more babies. My husband and I are giving him various reasons, one of which is space.)

Me: “We can’t have any more babies. Were would we put them?”

(My 6-year-old daughter chimes in.)

Daughter: “In an orphanage!”

(My dad is getting my two-year-old niece to show what words she knows.)

Dad: “Can you say, ‘Fish and chips’?”

Niece: “Chippy!”

Dad: “Can you say ‘Fish’?”

Niece: “Eat it!”

Dad: “Well yes, you eat it…can you say ‘Keyboard’?”

Niece: “Board!”

Dad: “Can you say ‘key’?”

Niece: “Key!”

Dad: “Keyboard.”

Niece: “Eat it!”

(I am chatting to my 6-year-old son, who is in a cheeky mood and pulling faces at me.)

Me: “Stop pulling faces like that.”

Son: “Why, mummy?”

Me: “It’s a little bit naughty. Anyway, if the wind changes, you’ll stay like that.”

Son: *thinks for a second* “Is that what happened to you, mummy?”