smart boys rule

No. I mean it. They rule like Kings. No, Dictators. Pesky Dictators. Dictators with wacky demands like "More Saltines!" and "One more game of Jeopardy!"

It's our fault. Back in the bad old days before we blessed with our child, Charley and I were Jeopardy! freaks. Then we sort of stopped watching tv for a while when the baby came because we couldn't keep our eyes open past 6:00 p.m. But after awhile, I thought it might be okay if we watched it one night during dinner. I did really well for a while, keeping the television off during the dinner hour, making us eat at the dining room table, having conversation like normal people. But one night, Charley was working late, and I got lazy, having spent the day answering 20,000 questions about how doors open and what is a heart attack (?!) so I turned on the tv, and there was my old heartthrob, Alex Trebek. Oh, Alex. If you only knew.

Anyway, Charley walked in the door just in time for Double Jeopardy and we were all glued. Joe-Henry was hooked, and we thought it was sooooo cute, the way he made us answer everything in the form of a question. "What is BEDTIME, Alex?!" We would play Jeopardy! in the bath, and we would make up all sorts of questions and be kind of blown away by how sophisticated he was getting.

So the other night, Charley got the incredibly great idea of picking up the Jeopardy! board game after work and bringing it home as a surprise for JH. Unfortunately, it was the adult game, so until we could figure out how to make our own template and make up our own questions, JH was stuck being Alex Trebek. Which was fine, really, he makes a great Alex (and Johnny Gilbert, too, although he can't think of any other way to introduce me than "JOE-HENRY'S MOMMY, ANNE MCQ!"), and as he said, "wow! I'm learning a LOT being Alex!",still the whole point of getting the game was to find fun ways for him to learn, and let's face it, get ready for kid's Jeopardy!, then go on to the adult game, and win lots of money so he can keep us in the old age home of our choosing.

So do you know what I did yesterday? ALL DAY YESTERDAY? I played Jeopardy!. That's what. And when I wasn't playing, I was chained like a prisoner to my laptop, coming up with clever categories and even more clever questions. He was home from school, of course, with the holiday, and at one point, I saw into the near future. There I was, sweltering in the summer heat, muttering under my breath, the Encyclopedia Britannica open next to me, hammering out the next round of Jeopardy! questions.

Guess what I'm doing today while he's at school? If you think I'm writing Jeopardy! questions, you'd be dead wrong. I am enrolling him in enough summer activities to keep him out of my hair for a couple hours a day, so that I don't go stark raving mad. That's what I'm doing today.

Oh, and he's now wavering between Dwight from The Office and Alex Trebek for Halloween.