My son has his annual appointment with his cardiologist this afternoon. Yesterday, when I told him we would be seeing his heart doctor he got a little nervous.

I reassured him, “There won’t be any needles. They’re just going to put some stickers on your belly (an EKG) and then they’ll put some goo on your chest and use a wand to take some pictures (an echocardiogram). It won’t hurt at all.”

Of course, because he’s a boy he then asked, “What kind of goo?”

“Well, it’s kind of like clear jelly, but it’s not sticky. You’ll be able to see your heart on TV and sometimes they add color and you can see your red and blue blood mixing because of the hole in your heart. It’s pretty cool, buddy.”

He asked, “My red blood mixes with my blue blood?”

“Yes, it does.”

He scrunched up his face and said, “Maybe that makes my blood purple.”

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This drawing is from some of my son’s speech therapy homework from last week. For this assignment, I had to show him the picture then ask him questions about it.

I said, “Look at this. The Mom is just coming in the door and the Daddy and the little girl made a big mess in the kitchen. Now they’re just sitting there eating and watching TV. What do you think will happen next?”

He replied, “Well, maybe the Mom needs to clean it up.”

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One of the best things about working as an aide in a second grade classroom is being with kids who are, for the most part, too young to be corrupt. When they say something inappropriate, it comes from a pure and innocent place.

So, when the teacher asked for an example of a word with the “short i” sound, and a student raised his hand and said, “Tit”…shouldn’t he get partial credit?

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There is a radio station here that plays nothing but Christmas music from Thanksgiving through Christmas day. This year, they started two weeks early.

Surprisingly, I was fine with the early caroling. After all, I have two kids who are excited and filled with wonder during this season…what’s wrong with getting a bit of a jump start?

But the holiday glow was quickly washed from my face when my slightly obsessive-compulsive, six year old son took to Bob Seger’s rendition of “Little Drummer Boy”.

“Little Drummer Boy” is one thing, but I’m not a fan of Bob’s. To put it mildly, not at all.

Yesterday I was playing seasonal tunes through our cable box when Mr. Seger popped up on the television screen, sitting on a motorcycle, while singing my boy’s favorite holiday song. Once it ended, my kid knew he could simply rewind the DVR to hear it again, and again, and again, and again.

I appreciate the sentiment of the song, I love it’s message, but Bob Seger puts the “assail” in wassailing.

Today we were out running errands when my son started getting tired and cranky. I thought the best thing to cheer him up would be for me to sing “Little Drummer Boy”.

I looked in the rearview mirror and started, “Come they told me…”

He interrupted, “Why are you singing that?”

I said, “Because you love that song.”

He replied, “Oh. Well, maybe you should just sing it to yourself, in your head.”

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