The litte guy’s grandmothers on both sides knew that he has a deep love of tractors. When it came time to buy Christmas presents, it was easy to find him gifts because they could just buy toy tractors. He ended up with a couple of really big tractors that are amongst his favorite toys. One of them has a huge toy trailer to go with it that is roughly the size of a decent-sized shoebox.
“What do you want to do today?”
“Play with my tractors.”
“What are you going to farm today then.”
“I don’t know.” And with that he started looking around the room.
I could see the little wheels inside his head turning as he decided what he was going to do with his tractors. When I was a kid, I was blessed with an active imagination. I had to have one living in the country as I didn’t always have friends coming over to play. My little guy has that same imagnative spirit.
“I’m farming alien dust today, Daddy.”
Both the House Mom and I chuckled at that one. As with many little kids, his favorite movie changes weekly. But for the past few weeks, it has been the 1954 classic War of the Worlds. Great movie. I loved it as a kid too. Still do actually. But farming alien dust? This I had to see.
“How do you farm alien dust?”
“First you need aliens.” And with that, he drove off his tractor on a mission to, I guess, harvest aliens.
“Got one!”
He drove his tractor back out into the living room with one hand holding the alien life form in the trailer. This vicious alien was covered with orange and white hair-like extensions, had a long, slithering tail and spoke in a strange language that sounded like something from a Meow Mix commercial.
He then dumped the alien into a big, red bucket and hauled that into the kitchen.
“Where you going with your alien?”
“I need to shake the alien dust around the house so the other aliens will stay away.”
“Okay, just be nice to the poor ittle alien. He doesn’t look happy.”
“He’s an alien, this is how they are happy.”
May I never be an alien.
So he traveled around the house, spreading alien dust to the corners of each room. Occassionally the alien would make a break for it, but the little guy would catch it rght away and shove it back in the bucket. Aliens are sneaky, you know.
A short while later, I noticed the little guy was playing with a few other toys.
“How’s the fight against the aliens going?”
“I not fighting aliens, Daddy.”
“Okay, what are you doing now?”
“I doing construction,” he said while looking at the couch. I see that he has a hammer in with his toys.
I should intercede, but I never really liked that couch.
