Reality

I wish I lived in my son's world. It has it's problems, but for the most part I think it's the place to be.

I mean, at this time of year it would be great to jump into the head of kid again. All that belief. All of that ability to assimilate every magical thing into their daily lives. The feeling that Christmas if forever away, whether it's October 1st or December 20th.

When I was a kid I would sit on my couch in the dark listening to Christmas music and looking at the lights on the tree. I would dream I was one of the ornaments and that I lived in the tree. Every now and then I catch a whiff of something that brings back that old magic. That old feeling that I can slip into another reality. But mostly it is manufactured. Mostly I'm stuck here with the rest of us.

Not my son.

About three weeks ago he was picked to be a shepherd in the Nativity at church. When we got home I asked what the kids were going to be. My daughter said that she was going to be Mary and my son said that he was going to be a German shepherd. You know the German shepherd from the nativity. It's the one who sniffed out the cocaine hidden in the tunic of the fourth wise man.

Then, after we had established that he wasn't going to be a dog, he said that at the end of the Nativity play he and the other shepherds would get their shepherd powers. I really wish I had quizzed him as to what, exactly, those powers would have been. Flying? Laser vision? Tap Dance? I can see the next Marvel Comic, THE SHEPHERD! WAR JOURNAL. The first issue would be worth a mint, but the rest would blow.

There have been several incidences like this. They always make me laugh. We saw a TV show with a birth scene recently. The lady was sweating and grunting and clearly in pain. Rebecca and I were casually watching and not disturbed by her pain. And of course we explained to him that she was giving birth. Well last night as my brother-in-law and I watched Ronin, a much bloodier movie than I expected, we got to the scene where Robert Deniro is having a bullet removed from his side without anesthesia. My son came downstairs and saw it and said, "Is that man having a baby?" "No, he's not," I said and shooed him back upstairs. Then upstairs I heard him tell his mother that the guy on TV was having a baby. And then he asked her how old he had to be before he could have a baby.

And last, but not least, we were decorating for Christmas, because it is that time of year, and he was singing, "La la la la and the gifts for the king kong la la la la." And his sister says, "The song is about the wise men and Jesus. King Kong was not in the Nativity!"

And then, just like every other time when the truth was revealed to him, he said, "Oh." And a little bit of magic fizz bubbled out of his world. Leaving it just a little bit flatter.