Christmas snuck up on me this year. It often does, and I know I’m not alone. The older I get, the faster time accelerates. I fully expect to wake up any day and find out it’s 2025. Which will be cool, because surely by then we’ll be able to teleport.

But Christmas snuck up on me in a new way this year. It snuck up on me in the form of Owen, almost four and 1/2, asking questions about God. Pesky Christmas carols.

Lisa and I are both singers, so when the holiday season rolls around, you’ll find us humming, whistling, and often belting out one Christmas carol or another. We even sing the occasional Hanukkah song, and I’m told I do a pretty decent Grinch. So there we were, innocently trading verses of Joy To The World, and I get to the part about “He rules the world, with truth and grace.”

Owen: “Who?”

Me: “Who what?”

Owen: “Who rules the world?”

Me: “He does.”

Owen: “He who?”

Me: “He God.”

Owen: “Hegod?”

Me: “No, God. Just God.”

Owen: “Who’s God?”

Me (inside my head): “Fuck. Really? Have we actually not covered this? Shit, I guess we haven’t. Crap, crap, crap. What do I say? I totally should have rehearsed this.”

Me (out loud, nodding head and looking thoughtful): ” … ”

Owen: “Who’s God?”

Me (still looking thoughtful): “Uh.”

Owen: “Can I watch TV?”

Me: “Totally! What do you want to watch?”

Ha! Dodged that bullet. Barely. And clearly we can’t leave this question unanswered. The kid needs to know who/what God is, but here’s the rub: I’m not sure I know who/what God is. More to the point, I don’t believe there is a God. At least, not in the Judeo-Christian, monotheistic, omnipotent, personified sense of the word.

I suppose this makes me an atheist. I have a hard time calling myself an atheist, because in modern American culture, calling yourself an atheist is a like proclaiming yourself as some kind of activist. It implies advocacy. Membership in a club. Part of the reason I’m an atheist is because I don’t really want to be in any of the clubs. I just don’t believe there’s a God. Which, by definition, means I’m an atheist. So there you are.

My wife and I are in different places about this. As I mentioned in my anniversary post, I basically excised Jesus from our wedding. Lisa didn’t fight me on this, but if it were left to her she wouldn’t have done it. We don’t go to church or actively practice religion, but if you ask her, she’ll tell you she believes in God. She was raised Christian. She went to Sunday school and attended church with her parents. I wasn’t, and didn’t. My family celebrated Christmas and Easter in our secular-humanist/consumerist way, but God didn’t much factor in.

So we come from different angles, but we’re not THAT far apart. My moral and ethical sense is basically in line with Christianity. Love thy neighbor, do unto others, have a few hundred wives, and live to be 350. All this stuff sounds OK to me. And as I said, I’m not an activist atheist. If you believe in God, that’s cool. I’m not going to try and talk you out of that belief. Unless you try and talk me in to something, in which case we may have a problem. A friend of mine who actually is Christian has a great bumper sticker on his refrigerator door (because there’s no way he’s sticking it on his Audi). It’s attributed to Gandhi and says “I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. They are so unlike your Christ.” This isn’t why I don’t believe in God, but it goes a long way toward why I don’t spend much time in church. That, and the whole don’t-believe-in-God thing. That tends to get in the way for the Christians. Apparently it’s not a requirement for the Jews, though, so there’s always that route. But I’m getting off track.

So, back to the issue at hand. What to tell my son about God? God is an important concept to understand, regardless what you believe. You can’t live in the world and not know what God is. So, like saying please and thank you, crossing the street, and the Beatles, I need to teach my son about God. And at some point he’ll need to make up his own mind about whether he thinks there is such a thing. But that’s for later. For starters, he needs to know what it means.

As you might expect, my escape from this discussion was short-lived. It wasn’t long before Owen brought it up again, likely in response to some other Christmas carol–related incident. But this time, I was slightly more prepared.

Owen: “Who is God?”

Me: “OK. You know that episode of The Backyardigans where Pablo and Tyrone go up above the clouds to see the goddess of weather to ask her to make it stop raining so they can play basketball?

Owen: “Yeah.”

Me: “And while they’re there they meet the goddess of naps and the god of laughter?”

Owen: “Yeah.”

Me: “Well, some people believe there’s just one God in charge of everything.”

Owen: “Oh. OK. Is there?”

Me (inside my head): “Fuck.”

Me (out loud): “Some people think so. Some people believe … different things.”

Owen: “Do you think so, or do you believe … different things?”

Me: “Well, I guess I believe … different things.”

And he basically let it go at that. For now. I’m sure this won’t be the last conversation we have about it, so I’m sorting out how to help him understand, so when it does come up again, I’m more prepared. I can’t fake this. I need an honest, true answer for my son about God. I think I’ll tell him I don’t believe there is such a being, but a lot of people do, and the truth is, I don’t really know.

I mentioned this to my friend Becky, who has three girls and has been my friend since junior high.

Becky: “Hm. That’s a tough one. Wait till he asks where you go when you die. I like, ‘When you die, you go back to where you were before you were born.’”

Me (channeling Owen): “In mommy’s tummy?”

Becky: “Before that.”

Me (still channeling Owen): “In daddy’s penis?”

She’s gonna need to flesh out this line of reasoning, I think. For my part, I’m open to any and all suggestions or advice.

This is my second entry in the Write-Of-Passage Writing Well Challenge. Check out the links at the bottom to see some of the other great writing being contributed.

Gotta say, this week’s challenge is hard, yo! It’s FICTION! Ack! Here are the instructions:

Find a person in public today and study their character. Make a story surrounding them. Build them in to your short essay.

Uh … OK. Find a person in public? You mean, like, on the street? I tried this, but the dude I was staring at noticed me and then was like, “Uh, dude, what the fuck are you looking at?” So I decided to go another way. Hopefully I don’t hit too wide of the mark.

Mr. Noodle’s brother, Mr. Noodle walked onto the set for yet another day of shame and humiliation at the hands of that red-furred, googly-eyed little tyrant.

It wasn’t enough he had to be here at the crack of dawn, wearing these ridiculously oversized clothes that made him look like some kind of Muppet himself. No, he would once again be forced to pretend not to know how to do some incredibly rudimentary task, like tie his shoes, hit a ball, eat soup … whatever … on national TV. Of COURSE he knew how to do these things. Was he a moron? No. He was not. Far from it. Thankfully, it was public television, and few of his friends had kids, so thankfully most didn’t know what was put through every day.

After finishing his Ph.D. in applied physics at MIT, he quickly realized just because his degree had the word “applied’ in it, that didn’t mean his skills could actually be “applied” to anything resembling a decent-paying job. After going on interview after demoralizing interview, he’d finally agreed to meet with his brother’s boss. “The job is great,” his brother, Mr. Noodle, would always say. “It’s a piece of cake. And he’d LOVE you! I’ve told him about you and he’s SO ready to bring on a sidekick for me. Just say the word and you’re in. Piece of cake, I’m telling you. Cake.”

He didn’t mind the idea of working with his brother, though “sidekick” wasn’t really what he had in mind. And no matter how much of a shoo-in his brother said he was, of course it wasn’t that simple. Even with his brother’s endorsement, they wanted to meet him before they’d give him the job. Not a problem, although having seen that hairy little red guy on TV a few times when he tuned in to watch his brother, he didn’t trust him. He seemed all happy and innocent and friendly, and sure, kids loved him, but from the stories his brother had told him, it just didn’t add up. His brother called him “brilliant,” “savvy,” and sometimes “ruthless.” He meant it as a compliment, and yet those words just didn’t jive with the bright red, squeaky-voiced dust mop making a fool out of his brother on TV every day. While it looked like fun and games, he knew there had to be more to Elmo than what people saw on that show.

Then there was Mr. Noodle’s brother Mr. Noodle’s inherent … uh … discomfort speaking with others. Social anxiety disorder, they’d called it. Whatever. People get nervous when they meet new people. He wasn’t that different. Sure, he had to wear three undershirts to keep from soaking his clothes with sweat, and he couldn’t exactly speak OUT LOUD for 20 or 30 minutes after first meeting someone, but how unusual is that, really?

The meeting went well enough, all things considered. Luckily he didn’t need to say a word, since that thing across the table never shut up. And even if he hadn’t had a clinically diagnosed condition that made him uncomfortable in social situations, he’d like to see the guy who wouldn’t be taken aback by the deep croaking rasp of the little monster’s speaking voice, and the fact he chain smoked 37 Lucky Strikes during their 15-minute meeting. He couldn’t even be sure it had lips, though that didn’t stop Elmo sucking down cigarettes one after another. But by far the most unnerving thing about meeting him in person was his laugh. His voice sounded nothing like it did on television (kids would run screaming if they heard the cross between George Carlin and Dick Cheney that was Elmo’s actual voice), but his laugh was exactly like on the show. High, fast, and verging on hysterical.

That was years ago. He’d long since gotten used to all of it, though it hadn’t made him like the little creep any more than that first day. These days it was just about getting through the day on the set. Because Mr. Noodle never had any lines in the show, they never sent him an advance copy of the script. They said it was so his reactions would be spontaneous and genuine, but that was bullshit. They knew if he had a heads up about half the shit they made him do he’d have stopped showing up long ago. He could count on ending up soaking wet, covered in pie, or having to land on his ass for about 100 takes until they got just … the … right … one … to please that hirsute Orson Welles. He watched the show enough to know they usually used the first or second take. That little asshat just liked to watch him suffer.

And not just him. He was so jealous of the guy who worked that fucking drawer, getting to push the little megalomaniac on his ass every day. Elmo would have cut that bit long ago if it didn’t get such a huge laugh. His brother was right, the guy was smart. Scary smart. Nobody fucked with him. It was all “yes, Mr. Elmo” and “no, Mr. Elmo” and “right away, Mr. Elmo.” Even the humans who were allegedly in charge knew who was really calling the shots.

More than anything else, it was the goldfish that finally made him realize just how horrible it all was. They went through at least 30 fish a day on the show. It was mind boggling. The kids at home thought there was just one goldfish. Elmo’s beloved pet, Dorothy. He’d always known that couldn’t be true. Goldfish don’t live that long, so naturally there had to be more than one. But that tiny red menace had it written into his contract from the beginning there must be a constant supply of extra goldfish available to be swapped in at any time if something wasn’t quite right. And there was always something not quite right. This one doesn’t move around enough, that one swims too much, this one’s got some white on his fin, that one looked at me funny. It kept Mr. Noodle up some nights, thinking about all those fish. Most people on set still didn’t know what happened to them. They assumed it was Elmo’s one soft spot, the way he personally carried every rejected fish from the set. That little fuzzball wouldn’t so much as lift a finger to move his own water glass, but he’d never let anyone else touch the fish in the bowl when he called for a new one. He’d scoop them out with the little net and carry them through the stage right door to his dressing room. Everyone assumed he flushed them. Then, three weeks ago, Mr. Noodle learned something he really never wanted to know about his boss and those fish.

He’d decided to take advantage of the downtime during one of the many fish swaps to visit the craft services table. They technically hadn’t called a break, but fuck that little hairball, he’d been falling off a pogo stick for six hours, his ass hurt, and he was damn well gonna have a donut. The day was almost over and they had to be getting close to the end the fish supply, Elmo had carted off so many. Noodle was biting into a jelly donut when he noticed the boss man’s dressing room door open behind him. From down the hall he could see straight into where the little thing was taking the latest in the line of rejected Dorothys.

He started to turn away — he didn’t really want that little fuckwit seeing him sneaking a donut between takes — when he saw what looked like a huge glass bowl of mandarin orange slices. Except they were wriggling. The little creep dropped in the latest addition, and Noodle realized it was all that day’s fish, crammed together in a massive brandy snifter, like piano players use for tips, with barely enough water to keep them alive. Jelly dripped onto Noodle’s sleeve as the little fish monger picked up the glass and tilted it to his mouth. He opened his jawless maw almost 180 degrees, like only a Muppet can. Then, just before that shiny, wriggling mass of discarded goldfish slid down his throat, Noodle suddenly understood why the guys who’d been here the longest walked on eggshells around Elmo, jumping out of their skins when he came up behind them.

As the wriggling mass of former Dorothys slipped into his mouth, six or seven rows of jagged, triangular, razor-sharp teeth emerged from the soft black felt inside his mouth. He chomped and slurped till the fish were churned into a kind of soup of scales and blood and tiny bones. When he’d swallowed them all, the teeth slid back into their sockets and he wiped his face with the back of his fur-covered hand. Then, Noodle realized Elmo was staring at him. The crimson creature grinned and winked a little, as much as a monster with no eyelids can wink. And it was then Noodle knew why no one ever quit, and why he could never leave the show. No one would ever believe him if he told them the truth. He dropped the donut in the trash and wiped the jelly off his sleeve before heading back under the lights in a horror-filled haze. From behind him he heard that screeching, hysterical laughter. This was Elmo’s World, all right. And he suspected he would never escape.

This post is dedicated to Michael Jeter, the actor who played Mr. Noodle’s Brother, Mr. Noodle, in addition to many wonderful roles in film, theater, and television. He died in 2003 after voicing Smokey and Steamer in The Polar Express.

I also just realized that this post might make this one make a bit more sense.

We’ve never been really big on nicknames for our kids. I mean, we call our kids by pet names — Owen is often “O,” “Little Dude,” “Big Guy,” while Nicholas is “Baby,” “Little,” etc. But neither has really had an official nickname. Now one of them does. From this point forward, Nicholas shall officially be known as Bam Bam. You know, like Barney and Betty’s little cavekid on the Flintstones? Lisa came up with this, and it’s pretty much perfect for him. He’s small, cute, is a man of few words, and smashes the hell out of anything he can get his hands on.

As I wrote in a post back in September, our kids are so different from each other. They have stuff in common, too, but in some fundamental ways they are just very different people. Owen is curious, but cautious. Careful to avoid risks, he weighs unknown situations and challenges before trying anything new. This has been his M.O. pretty much forever. He wasn’t too quick to start walking, waiting till he was sure he could pull it off before getting up from the safety of all fours. Once he was up, he took it slow, measuring his steps, making sure there was was something or someone to grab if things got wonky. He’s the same with food, new activities, school, and just about everything else. Especially anything physical – he’ll try stuff, but he thinks about it first, analyzing the situation, and occasionally needing encouragement or help if he decides it’s not within his reach.

Then there’s Bam Bam. He started walking at 10 months — a full 4 months before his older brother. I think he crawled exclusively for about a week. Having mastered that, he was up on his feet, cruising around holding onto whatever he could get his hands on. Not long after that, he let go and went for it — look Ma, no hands! BAM! He’d fall down and bash his head/eye/nose/face/whatever. Short pause to cry, then up again. And while Owen walked slowly at first, Nicholas pretty much just fell forward until his legs couldn’t keep up anymore. He was a festival of bruises and scrapes, mostly on his face. I sometimes felt compelled to tell people, “Really, we don’t beat him, I swear,” but it never took long for them to see for themselves where all those little injuries were coming from. Now, at almost 18 months, he’s unstoppable. He runs almost as fast as his 4-year old brother, climbs almost as high, and is within inches of learning to really jump, which scares the shit out of his mother and me. To his credit, he’s amazingly strong and sturdy with great balance, so he does fall a lot less than he used to. Or at least, when he does, he falls well, catching himself with his hands, rolling on his shoulder, or plopping on his diaper-padded bottom instead of faceplanting into the concrete, hardwood, or wherever he happens to be. If there’s a natural athlete among us, it is Nicholas.

I have visions of who my kids will be later in life, and Bam Bam is so clearly going to be the trouble maker. While Owen stares up at the ball lost on the roof, working out whether there’s something he might throw at it or a stick long enough to knock it down, Nicholas will be dragging over the ladder, or whatever’s handy to give him enough of a leg up to climb up and get it. Since he’s three years younger and bound to be shorter than his brother for a while at least, I can also easily imagine him talking Owen into doing the climbing. “C’mon, dude, it’s not that high. I’d totally do it but I can’t reach. Dude, you’ll be FINE!” This will translate later in their lives to Bam Bam convincing Owen that “Mom and Dad TOTALLY won’t mind if we take the car out for just a minute to go pick up girls/get beer/drop in on a friend’s party. We’ll be back before they even know we’re gone. It’ll be totally cool.”

But we’ve got a few years until then, I hope. Meanwhile, it’s great to watch little Nicholas give his all to keep up with his brother. In addition to being the destructor, Nicholas is also the total clown. Owen’s funny in a verbal, occasionally mugging face kinda way. Nicholas is Charlie Chaplin. Well, maybe that’s crediting him with more finesse than he currently has. Maybe he’s more like a one-man Marx Brothers. He’s the total physical comedian, and loves to dance. Let’s take it out with a little video of Bam Bam rocking out with Ernie. If Bam Bam doesn’t stick, we can always just go with “Trouble.” And yes, that’s a wine refrigerator in the background. We almost always wait till the kids are asleep to unlock it. Almost always.

Dear Badass Dad,

Hi! Remember me? It’s been a while so I just thought I’d make sure you hadn’t forgotten about me! LOL! Like you would! Ha!

Luvs,
Your Blog

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Dear Badass Dad,

Hi, again. I don’t want to be a pest – LOL! – but since I didn’t hear back after my note a couple weeks ago I thought I’d write again, just to make sure you got that last note. Can’t trust email, you know! Ha ha! Anyway, drop me a line, or even toss some photos my way for a Wordless Wednesday. Whatevs! Just wanna stay in touch.

Totes lurve you,
Your Blog

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Badass Dad,

Hi. Uh, this is awkward. I know you got that last email because I sent it return receipt and I saw you opened it like one minute and 38 seconds after I sent it, so since it’s been almost a week I’m really wondering if I did something wrong. Was it that thing a while back where people couldn’t leave comments? I swear that wasn’t my fault. I have NO IDEA why that happened, but it won’t happen again, I swear. Please, just post something. ANYTHING!

Your Blog

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All right, Assclown. WTF? It’s September, dude. You posted like TWICE in the WHOLE MONTH OF AUGUST! You expect people to just keep checking their reader or clicking the bookmark to your blog to find the SAME OLD SHIT!!!??? They won’t, dude. They’ll fucking punt your ass and move on. You may think you’re some hot shit dad blogger but man you are a DIME A DOZEN! Anybody can put up a blog, dude. It’s not hard. It’s totally easy and FREE, so seriously, ANYBODY can do it. I mean, you didn’t even customize your fucking blog template. You used some stock Blogger bullshit theme and expect people to give a SHIT ABOUT YOU!? Whatever, dude. They don’t, and neither do I. I’m done. I give up. You can fuck off for all I care.

Your Former Blog

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I’m sorry. Please write.

Love,
Your Blog

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Seriously, I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean those things I said. Of COURSE people still care about you! You’re a GREAT blogger! I mean, you’ve got like 47 followers! And I’m sure that’s just a drop in the bucket since most people don’t even know what following IS! I’m sure you totally have HUNDREDS of people who read EVERY POST you write, and would read every day if you posted more. Not that you need to post more. You totally don’t. I mean, three weeks seems like a long time to go without a post, but that’s totally just my opinion. I’m sure you have some brilliant cunning plan or whatever (LOL!), and your next post is probably going to be huge! EPIC!!! Not that all your other posts aren’t. They totally are!

Friends? I hope so. Please write.

Love,
Your Blog

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Now I’m worried you might be dead. Are you dead? Please write.

Your Blog

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Dear Blog,

Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated. Just been busy and haven’t felt inspired to write. Don’t worry, I’ll write soon. Thanks for checking in. And, uh, chill out, ok?

Sincerely,
Badass Dad

As a father of boys, I consider myself lucky. When it comes to buying toys for my kids, I know if I get them something I think is cool, they’ll be totally happy. Spaceships, super heroes, dinosaurs, pirates — none of this is a stretch for me. But what about all the fathers of girls out there?

I have a friend. A single father of an adorable little 4-year old girl. He loves her, and of course like any father wants her to be happy. He mans up and doesn’t balk when she wants unicorns and princesses and frilly dresses and all manner of girly things. So he didn’t think twice about buying her a pink princess bubble wand. All hearts and flowers and little stars, it looked perfectly innocent and completely girly. Everything seemed right in her little pink princess world. Then he turned it upside down.

Two posts in one day? Crazy, right? One here (see below) and one at Pamela Perez’ A Day In The Life. That one is one of our best dog stories.

Owen picked his own gift for his mom this Mother’s Day. He’s almost 4, and was excited about a secret mission with Dad to pick out a surprise for Mom. I tried to drive home how we shouldn’t tell Mommy what we were getting her because we wanted it to be a surprise on Mother’s Day. Any guesses how that went?

If you haven’t known many 4-year olds, you may not realize that a gift chosen by a 4-year old is really a gift FOR said 4-year old, cleverly disguised as being for someone else. This works especially well when the recipient is a member of the same household, as it gives the 4-year old unfettered access to said gift after it’s given. 4-year olds are adorable, charming, and unequivocally selfish, especially when it comes to presents. Since getting a Transformers toy (Optimus Prime, if you’re keeping score) for Christmas, Owen’s been intent on acquiring additional Transformers for himself the rest of the family. I got Megatron for my birthday, he wants to get Bumblebee for his brother “when he’s a little bigger” (he’s 11 months) and has been saying Mommy should have Prowl. So that’s pretty much what Lisa expected for Mother’s Day from Owen. Every mother’s dream.

So I was pretty excited when we got to Target and spotted something else he’d wanted to get “for her” that hadn’t come up for a while. She wouldn’t expect this, so we might actually have a shot at surprising her. Though still basically a bowling ball with “Homer” written on it, it did have a slightly better chance of being something Mommy would even have fun with than a Transformer. After getting it gift wrapped at Paper. stopping so Owen could pee (and Daddy could pick up a case of wine) at Colorado Wine Company, and picking up lunch at The Coffee Table, we headed home.

We sat down at the table to eat. Owen and I had worked out a plan to leave the presents in the car until tomorrow, so Lisa could open them and be surprised on Mother’s Day. Owen seemed cool with this, but when she asked him if he’d had fun on our adventure, it took abut 10 seconds before he chimed in with “I can’t tell you what we got for you, but when you open it you’ll see it’s the Mace Windu one.” We smiled at each other and started laughing. Mommy knows her Star Wars characters. Element of surprise, gone. Cat, say goodbye to bag.

Happy Mother’s Day, Mommy. Hope you like your lightsaber.

p.s. Mommy will also be getting something from Daddy, something which is actually for her and which I think she’ll like quite a lot.

Owen is obsessed with Star Wars.

Owen is 3 3/4 (he’ll correct you if you say he’s 3 1/2), and obsessed with Star Wars. He’s probably too young for this fairly violent (and completely awesome) series of films (and cartoons – did you know there were cartoons?!). But we love it, and thought he would love it, and he does, so yahtzee! The thing is, I couldn’t take much more Diego. Or the Wiggles, oh my god the Wiggles. If you’ve managed to avoid this particular Australian import, count yourself extremely lucky. I thought we were so clever to have kept Barney out of the house, then the Wiggles flanked us and moved in. Clever Wiggles. Anyway, Owen has now seen all six Star Wars films, the Clone Wars animated feature, and many episodes of the Clone Wars animated TV show. He owns three very realistic, battery operated lightsabers, complete with lights and sounds, and has played Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga on PlayStation3. He’s definitely too young for THAT. We’re horrible parents.

But that’s not the point. The point is, he’s most obsessed with particular aspects of Star Wars. Much to my wife’s chagrin (“I thought I had more time!”) his fixation is primarily on the female characters who aren’t wearing a lot of clothing. This includes Leia in the early scenes of Return of the Jedi, Padme Amidala after the arena scene in Attack of the Clones, and Asohka (Anakin’s padowan learner) in Clone Wars. All have bare midriffs, shoulders, legs – you get the idea. He also digs Jedi and lightsabers, but likes them best if they are defending (or wielded by) scantily clad females. We think questions about whether he might be gay are pretty much answered.

When Owen wants to watch Star Wars, he usually asks by saying something like, “I want to watch Star Wars, where Princess Leia gets captured by Jabba, and has a tummy.” Having a tummy means her tummy is bare. When he sees someone with their belly showing he asks “Why does she have a tummy?” When he isn’t wearing shoes and doesn’t want to walk on something without them, he’ll object, “But I have feet!” We were driving one day and talking about the beach, and how he wouldn’t need shoes and could run around with bare feet. From the back seat: “Silly Daddy, not bear feet, KID feet!” So it’s just feet. And tummies. So back to that.

The tummy fixation isn’t new. He will consistently notice and comment on anyone with a bare belly. He’s into observing and pointing out body parts, and tummies are special, I suspect because they’re less often spotted than say, heads. Visiting a local motorcycle shop with my stepdad, Owen spotted a poster of a woman in a bikini, leaning suggestively against a motorcycle. He took inventory: “She has legs, and she has a tummy, and she has those, and she has arms …” That was a few months ago. By now I think he knows what “those” are called (his baby brother is breastfeeding, after all). He’s nothing if not observant.

If you aren’t already, you should be reading Tanis Miller’s blog, Attack of the Redneck Mommy. She’s funny, and smart, and Canadian, and often blogs about her boobs. What more do you want? Anyway, I follow her on Twitter and had her avatar up on my screen when Owen walked by. He stopped and looked at the picture for a bit, and then in a slightly shy but impishly smiling way said, “Why isn’t she wearing a shirt?”

I think she might be, you just can’t see it in the picture.

(Impish smile) “She looks like she’s … captured.”

I told Tanis about Owen’s comment. She says this is why she’ll never change her avatar – according to her, her real photo? So not captured. I suspect we may have planted the seeds for a rich sexual fantasy life for our not-yet-four-year old once he’s a bit (read: a LOT) older. I also suspect Redneck Mommy would be proud if that’s true.

So, that brings us back to Star Wars, doesn’t it? I’m king of the segue.

As I mentioned, in addition to the mostly naked women of Star Wars, Owen likes the Jedi. He wants to be a Jedi when he grows up. He holds out his hand and screws up his face and wonders why no people or objects move around the room from his powers. It’s awesome and a little heartbreaking. I’ve given him no reason to think he can’t be a Jedi when he grows up. I hope he never stops believing he can. As Yoda said about not believing, “That is why you fail.”

Star Wars creeps into almost every conversation now. Last week Owen asked, “What kind of car does mommy have?” A Honda.

“What kind of car does daddy have?” A Toyota.

“I like daddy’s car better … because it has Yoda in it.”

My faith in humanity bolstered, I now think introducing him to Star Wars was a pretty good idea. We’re awesome parents.

Some giant furry creatures we trust, others we don’t. Why is not always clear. Honestly, I would have expected this to go the other way.

The Easter Bunny … ok.

Elmo, not so much.