Why Sons are the Best: Part I

1. Five year olds are just the right height to play Yoda to my Dooku in Rocky Horror Picture Show-esque simultaneous movie-viewing/live re-enactments of epic lightsaber duels.

2. They see a pile of unstacked firewood and are inspired to build a robot, complete with instruction booklet, out of wood scaps.

3. The educational opportunities of watching Van Halen's "Hot for Teacher" video together.

4. The other morning when the three of us (Clara, Dash and I) were having a quiet breakfast together when all of the sudden, out of nowhere, Dash says, "It's weird . . . It's weird . . . It's weird . . . It's weird . . . It's weird . . ."

"Dash!" I interject, "Finish the sentence!"

"It's weird," he concludes "that in Star Wars they don't go potty."

5. On the beach in Tahoe I was putting sunscreen on him when I noticed he had put his swimsuit on over his boxer briefs. I kind of laughed at him to myself and loved him for being an absent-minded rational and then stripped him down right there on the beach so we could keep his underpants dry. Later, as I waded in to go swimming myself, I noticed that my own swimsuit felt funny. Sure enough, a quick inspection revealed that I too had slipped my swim trunks on over my boxer briefs. I considered dropping trou right there on the beach too, as a punishment for my own hubris in mocking Dash (even in my mind) but was too cowardly and instead discreetly handled it in the bathroom.