Pondering a Serious Subject

I had picked the little man up from preschool and we began our usual trek home. The little man was in great spirits and chattering away.

"Momma?" the little man said. "I've been thinking a lot today about what I want to be when I'm growed up."

"Oh, really?" I said. "What are thinking?"

"Well ... I have a lot of things going around in my brains," the little man said. "There's police mans .... and army mans ... and of course the blue police mans at the airport."

"What about fireman?" I asked the little man.

"Oh, I was just about to say that," He responded matter-of-factly. "Firemans ... oh, and paramedics."

"Well, you have a while to think about it and make up your mind buddy," I said, smiling to myself at the such grown-up conversation about growing up.

"Well, maybe when I'm 10 ... that's after 5 ... maybe when I'm 10, just MAYBE, I will have decided," the little man stated. "But I only have SERIOUS professions going around in my brains because I only want a SERIOUS profession when I'm growed up ... like an ambulance man."

The little man sat back in his carseat, deep in thought.

And Momma smiled the whole way home in awe of her SERIOUS little man.

Attack of the Lomster

It was a seemingly normal enough day when I picked the little man up from preschool. On the way home, the little man had a request.

"Momma?" he asked. "I wanna go to Red Lomster some day."

What may have been a seemingly normal enough question on this seemingly normal day definitely piqued my interest.

Mostly because neither my husband or I eat seafood.

(And yes, we have tried it all - the freshest crabcakes, the jumbo-ist of shrimp and even the most succulent lobster. Maybe it's because we grew up in the Midwest. Maybe we're just strange. Seafood just isn't something we find enjoyable. A large, juicy and rare Delmonico - now we're talking.)

"Why do you want to go to Red Lobster?" I asked.

"At Red Lomster they have lomsters ... and you can EAT them," he said, excitedly.

I figured Red Lobster must have been a topic of discussion today amongst him and his friends at preschool, so I let the subject rest with a simple "We'll see ... I'll tell Nana or Grammy Jo you want to go to Red Lobster." (Who both thoroughly enjoy sea-faring fare.)

End of story?

No.

What seemed like an innocent question was really the start of the little man's new obsession - "lomsters."

Ever since that one day there has been much excitement over "lomsters" in our house. Now we have lomster toys, lomster books, lomster shirts and I can't even begin to tell the excitement that resounded when the little man saw real-life lomsters at the Georgia Aquarium on a recent family trip to Atlanta.

Nevermind the ginormous whale sharks, the beluga whales or the million other rare, exotic or just plain cool animals at the aquarium. They all paled in comparison to the lomsters.

So you can imagine my un-surprise the other night as I was watching TV and heard a strange "kish-kish ... kish-kish..." approaching me from the kitchen.

I was then promptly attacked by my very own lomster ... with fierce silicone oven mits for claws and a big smile on his face as he made the kish-kish ... kish-kish ... noise that apparently represented the snapping of the lomster claws.

And, of course, a lomster shirt to boot.