Another Gray Hair

Semper Fi

My son hopped into the car today with all manner of Marine Corps merchandise. He had a book cover, a large poster and a pencil, all covered in Armed Services logos. I was a little surprised and asked him what he learned about the Marine Corps. Here's what I learned:

• Marines carry guns and get to set off fireworks.
  
• Marines blow up buildings.
  
• And, my personal favorite, Marines get to help Santa Claus with his toys.
  

I explained to my son that Marines were very brave men and women who fought for their country and that they had to fight in wars and many unpleasant things in addition to blowing stuff up, setting off fireworks and filling in for Santa's elves. I dare say the recruitment techniques for the under-7 set have gotten a bit skewed. Is there really recruiting for the under-7 set? I'm not ready for that yet. Not even close.

Stealing My Thunder

I mentioned, in Tuesday's post, that the Hale/Byrne Fireworks Spectacular was a blogworthy affair that would be given due diligence in a later post. Well, Jacquelyn (a Byrne) has stolen my thunder (with my blessing and encouragement--I'm all about letting her do the work for me) and done a great job telling the story on her new blog, "Real Moms Don't Play Bunco." Check it out and give Jacquelyn a warm welcome to the Blogosphere.

We're off on a much-needed vacation tomorrow. I'll probably check in from time to time but it will be quiet around here for a while.

Super Patriot

My son is ultra-patriotic. He doesn't insist on wearing flag pins every day and cry during the National Anthem or anything but he does have an unusual five-year-old fondness for the Grand 'Ol Flag. We have a reward system in our house in which the kids are given a ticket for completing a household chore. One ticket earns them one half hour of television viewing or one half hour of computer time. If they manage to save up five tickets, they earn $3 toward the item of their choice and, if they save up 10 tickets, they get to go to Chuck E. Cheese. Recently, my son saved five tickets and asked to go to Target (yes, I've trained them well) to pick out an item. We went and he picked out, of all of the glorious things in the Dollar Spot, an American flag. Even though I tend to have my own agenda about what my kids should want, I try to let them make the decisions.

I paid for his flag and took it out of the cellophane package. He waved it back and forth, staring at the stars and stripes with a smile, the whole way home. When we got home and I found a moment to sit down, my son informed me that we had a new rule now that he had his American flag. This is what he said:

Whenever I walk into the living room holding the American flag, you have to stop what you're doing and say the Pledge of Allegiance with me.

And so we did. He came into the room three or four times, waving the flag and I stopped folding laundry or dusting to recite the Pledge of Allegiance with him. The whole process cracked me up but I did get tired of saying the Pledge after the third time. There is something to be said, however, for repetitive Pledging of the flag. The process accomplished an unexpected feat when it actually managed to abate my post Mess-o-potamia (thank you Jon Stewart) cynicism a bit. I've even found myself humming It's a Grand Ol' Flag at random times during the day. I haven't started cloggin' it out yet but I'm close. I'm real close. It won't be long before I don my patriotic clogging duds and crank out a little Patriotic Medley in the kitchen, just for the heck of it.