Be careful what you wish for. I'm looking at you, Nate.

Can I confess to you that sometimes I get a teensy bit bored playing with my kids? I'm not saying that it's always boring or that I don't play with them, but sometimes it becomes, well, tedious. I understand that it is a violation of Mom Code to say this outloud. I think my status as a club member is now in jeopardy. Just don't tell anyone, will you? While I can't confirm its truth, there is a rumor going around that I sometimes use ice cream as a distraction from playing oneeeeeeeeeee mooooooooorreeeeeeee game of "Space Dogs" or "Moms and Babies".

However, Nate sometimes finds a way to make these games really interesting. (You can read about his alternative interpretation of a dollhouse here.) There is nothing in all creation quite like a 4 year old boy.


Yesterday, Nate and I were sitting on his bed, playing "Outer Space". ("Space Dogs" is a spinoff of this, you see. Kinda like how Melrose Place was a spinoff of 90210. But the space dogs don't wear short skirts.) He has a little lamp mounted on his wall that's in the shape of a star. It's from our beloved Ikea. The star lamp paired with his spaceship bedspread form the whole space milieu that we have going on. Look, it's very complex, ok?

So after our 3rd trip to Neptune, he turns the star lamp on, and snuggles next to me. "Make a wish, Mama," he says. How sweet is he, I think. "You have to close your eyes,"he tells me. So I do, and I wish that we would all have a happy day. Or something like that. And then I tell him it's his turn to make a wish.

So he sat up and closed his eyes. I looked at him and marveled at how long and fine his eyelashes are, how smooth and soft his cheeks are. What a precious little face, I'm thinking. "I wish...", he says. "I wish I had a gun that shoots nails."

"Dude." I say, snapping out of my reverie. "Did you just wish for a nail gun?" "Yeah!" Nate says. "I wanna shoot nails!" Then he starts jumping up and down on the bed.

I have no idea where that came from. We don't even really have toy guns around the house. (I like to keep my toy savage weaponry confined to swords, bows and arrows, and the like.)Boys will be boys, I guess. Neptune traveling, clothes stripping, nail shooting boys.

Later, I told Jason what Nate wished for. "Should I tell him I have a nail gun in the garage?", he asked me. Oh, yeah. That's a fantastic idea. Let's do that right now.

--Nate has a history of making notable wishes. Remember this one?