Is normal too much to ask for?

Dad flew Peter home from Oklahoma City today. We picked him up at the Newark Airport on the way home to Brooklyn from High Falls. I did manage a hug and kiss before he scoped the LEGO Mars Crystal Reaper in the rear window. This was the present that Timi ordered two months before his birthday--arghh! I'd said he couldn't build until after he'd returned from Oklahoma City. I'm certain he would have begun assembling right at airport curbside if security hadn't ushered us out. During the car ride home, I asked what he'd done in Oklahoma City. Our conversation went like:

"I heard you went to the zoo with Tyler."

"Yeah. Tyler likes playing little Legos too. We took apart the castle and built this digger attached to space station from another universe. Mama do you like the Mars Crystal Reaper?"

"Sure Bear, I think so. Gigi said you had a front row seat for the sea lion show."

"Is that what those animals were? Well, I didn't think you liked the mars reaper because the aliens aren't really real. When can we look up the Mars Rover on Wikipedia"

"Maybe tonight. I like plenty of things that aren't real. How did the puppet-making with Kelly go."

"When? I don't like puppets. If the Mars Rover goes 196 miles/hour is that faster than the speed of light?"

I went to the computer tonight to look up Ausberger's and how to talk to your son, and was greeted by a thoughtful email about Peter from my mom's friend Betsy. She's met Peter and mom for lunch a couple days before, and explained that Peter greeted her and even spoke. Bless her! One never quite knows if he'll say something in English, German, Plutonian, Blahelian or nothing at all. It was heartening to hear from Betsy that her son Clark was also preoccupied with Legos and seems to have grown into a normal human capable of conversing about subjects that don't need to be stabilized, attached, supported, controlled or reaped.

The truth is my little lego geek has me right where he wants me. Tonight before bed he asked me for milk. I said not after you've brushed your teeth. He turned on his dimples and said, "Mama, if I were you and I had a son, I'd do it for him." How could I resist?