I Want To Be Rich!

Over breakfast Bear informs me: "Mama, if you have one thousand one-thousands... you'll be rich." It's becoming apparent that, like his dad, our resident 6-year-old likes to play with numbers and figures in his head.

Our conversation continues:

Me: "Well, yes... one thousand times one thousand is a lot of money."

Bear: "I want to have lots of money." Then adds with dramatic conviction... "I want to be rich!" There's a hopeful, innocent glint in his eye that doesn't quite match the words.

Me: "One day, when you're an adult, if you work hard enough that's possible."

Bear: "Do Lego designers make lots of money?"

Me: "I think so. They should -- for all that impressive, creative stuff that they do."

Bear: With pumping hand action he yelps, "Yes!" Then he gets up to skip-with-joy around the table.

I'm amused, but as he does his one-day-I'll-be-rich-dance around our table, the neurotic mother in my head asks, could we have done or said something to spawn material boy? If you recall, I had a similar quandary concerning a certain material girl. Then instantly I snap out of it. I am happy for our little boy with big dreams. No need to give him the money-can't-buy-you-happiness speech. Some other day, maybe.

Today, I write this moment down so he'll remember how good it feels to be heady and wide-eyed with hopes and dreams of earning one thousand one-thousands. In his mind that probably means buying us cheese pizza galore, sharing unlimited chocolate fudge brownie ice cream with his sister, getting himself his dream car a... tadaaah... Honda Civic. It's all possible because one day he is getting that job designing toys for Lego. That simple.

The boy with a plan. You can make it happen Baby Bear!

Fifteen to twenty years from now... life will be more complicated, innocence will be shed, dreams may change, a Honda Civic no longer that appealing.

But I hope you realize that you will never be too old to do your happy-and-hopeful dance around the table as you did this morning... a 6-year-old boy, with two missing front teeth, wearing a sando with baby-blue airplanes on them.