Sweet Dreams Are Made of...

One time, in preschool, Small Fry's class was baking apple 'pies' (pat dough into lumpy circle; add apples, sugar and cinnamon; fold; bake) when some apple juice leaked out into the oven, causing smoke to billow, alarms to sound and children to be evacuated to the great outdoors until the firemen showed up to ensure all was well. Not one, but TWO fire trucks, chock-full of firemen. It was a beautiful day outside. The pies even turned out alright.

It was possibly the single best day of Small Fry's young life.

Come to think of it, when you distill it down to its primary component parts (Key Words: Firemen, Pie), it sounds like a pretty solid day by my reckoning as well.

More recently, he *may* have overheard me ranting to telling - well, any number of people - about a certain workplace fiasco involving a winter archaeological and palaeontological dig in a river valley with no overland access, wherein someone's fanciful solution to just fly a backhoe in for the afternoon somehow came to $30,000 fruition. And then the project was cancelled. Gah!

This scenario has really captured Small Fry's imagination. I admit I was a *leetle* irritated by the logistical nightmare it presented, the dollars wasted, the days of my life I will never get back, etc. but when you distill it down to its primary component parts (Key Words: Backhoe, Helicopter, FRICKING DINOSAUR BONES) it pretty much is the most amazing thing a little kid could even imagine. Heck, maybe I imagined it when I was a kid and... well, be careful what you wish for I guess. Now when we cuddle up at bedtime, Small Fry says to me, "Mommy, tell me the story about the helicopter and the backhoe." And I do. I even manage to write out my frustrations in the name of a good bedtime tale.

Then I snuggle right up and say to him, "Sweetie, tell Mommy the story about the firemen and the pie."

(Hmm, I wonder if they make a calendar for that?)