The Next Generation

I often think about what my children will become when they grow up. What occupation they will choose. I'm fairly certain my daughter will do something with her hands and the earth. She really wants to live on a farm and be surrounded by animals. Gee, wonder where she got that idea? I told her she would have to find herself a farmer to marry. Maybe we need to send her to K-State or Nebraska for college.

As for my 11yo, well I think he might become a computer geek-tech or a fantasy novelist. He does both quite well now, but he insists that he wants to be a carpenter or a missionary, which are fine occupations. He can build me a house when he's done building all the schools and hospitals and housing for the orphans in third world countries.

Now my 5yo and my 2yo are going to need to work together. I'm thinking with the negotiation skills and compliant nature of my 5yo that he would make a great lawyer and an even better judge. Those are his only choices. Why? Because my 2yo will most likely be incarcerated and he's going to need good representation and a forgiving man with a gavel.

You think I'm kidding but, I'm not. That toddler learned how to start the car yesterday, by himself. Sure he was using the keys, but it won't take him long to figure out how to hot wire it. I have to lock the van and hide the keys now, I just hope I remember where I put them.

Before he's arrested for auto theft he'll most likely be put on probation for vandalism to public property. He's already begun using his skin as a canvas for a black sharpie marker but he's branching out to the leather chair and incorporating the color red from an ink pen. Oh, the talent, he's pure genius.

He's also honed his petty theft skills. I play a little game with him called, "find where I hid the gum". I put it on top of the refrigerator, but that was child's play. Then I hid it on the top shelf of the junk cabinet behind the cat dewormer. He had more trouble with this because the temptation to open the dewormer and pour it over the tools, keys, buttons, coins, paper clips, rubber bands and old receipts was too much. I didn't catch him in the act, but he left such a trail of evidence that I had to set him down, while he was chewing his gum, and have a stern talking to him about not taking the bait and being more careful around booby-traps. He's still young, he has time to learn.

I'm trying to steer him away from violent crimes that may land him in the slammer. I've told him to get his aggressions out now on his oldest brother who is bigger and stronger and can take the pain and needs to have some experience with violence if he's going to be in the carpenter's union and he doesn't want to hurt his other brother, because after all, that brother is the judge.