Something I Learned Today.

Normally, when Brenda and I put Isaac to bed at night, we read two books and usually play with toys for about 10 minutes or so. Lately, however, Isaac has been requesting that we play either doctor or school. The last house we owned was sold to us by a man who was part-way through med-school. He unknowingly left his stethoscope in a closet, so after we obtained full ownership of the house, we also obtained ownership of doctor props should the occasion to play doctor arise. Lucky for us, Isaac loves to play doctor. But the doctor's office is not where I found myself tonight. Instead, I found myself in the classroom at a school that had a Star Wars-related class as part of its curriculum.

The last time Isaac and I played school, the bulk of the session was spent in the "cafeteria" where I was repeatedly encouraged to "get a Happy Meal." We rarely, almost never, only in the most dire of circumstances, eat at McDonald's; but ever since they decided to put Star Wars toys in the Happy Meals, Isaac has been fixated on the concept of them. Tonight, however, was a different story.

Tonight, I played the role of "Mr. Student-Dad." Isaac was a teacher...a shady one at best. After talking about our Star Wars homework, Isaac, momentarily playing the role of teacher AND student, had a conversation with himself which concluded with him asking me to talk to Isaac because "he doesn't speak Spanish." After that was recess. "Mr. Landis" walked over to me and handed me a car constructed completely of legos as well as a (water)gun and three (tiny, plastic) swords. He then told me to "hide them in (my) backpack." After a simulated end-of-recess bell sounded, Isaac began whispering in a very urgent tone. "Class. There is a tornado coming. For real. We have to go to that building over there. OK? Let's go." Once we safely made our way to the other building, Isaac told us (me) that we would be OK as long as the tornado stayed on the road and not the sidewalk. He quickly checked the twister's status a few times before he told me to get the gun out of my backpack and start shooting the tornado. Following the instructions of my teacher and my gut, I removed the miniature orange plastic Uzi from my Spiderman backpack and I squeezed the trigger until the hammer went "CLICK" (which was really only one shot). Crisis averted, we made our way back into the classroom where I informed Mr. Landis that it was time for bed.