Few days ago (Wednesday to be exact), we have dinner at Acapulco Fresh. Nice quick easy Tex-Mex, California-grill kind of place. Nachos, quesadillas, burritos, etc. Long benches along one window wall.

Steve and I are chatting, facing the window; Ben's bouncing around on the bench. Ben starts getting excited. Says something like, "Look! A fire work! A real live firework! Cool!"

Steve and I respond, without looking, tired, sighing, "Yes, Ben. Cool. A fire truck." We go back to chatting.

Steve gets up to get a drink. I happen to look up from my food (nachos. It was a bad day that needed some comfort food) and I happened to see one big-assed starburst of color out the window. "Wow!" Ben shouts. "Another firework!"

And that's when I remembered: the city of Sammamish, after having taken away our American God-given rights to blow ourselves up by lighting large colorful explosives, is attempting to put together a fireworks show for the 4th. This was their practice night: send up a few fireworks, plant people around the city, see who can see what where. Ben and I spent the next few minutes watching fireworks while Steve got his drink. Ben kept shouting, Wow! and Cool! and making various noises of boy excitement.

Steve kept wondering why Ben was so danged excited about firetrucks when he sees them all the time. He could hear Ben's shouts across the restaurant.

Luckily, Steve got back in time to see a few fireworks before they stopped.

Probably ought to listen to the boy more closely, eh?

We bought Ben a Leapster a few days ago. Gave it to him today.

What's a Leapster? It's a Game Boy with training wheels. The first video game for little kids. Educational. Really.

Why'd we get it? A friend got it for her kid. He plays with it for hours. But then again, this kid, at the age of 18 months could play by himself for hours. We were hoping to get a good 20 minutes out of it.

Bought him the Cars game to go with it.

Gave it to him today because he was feeling crappy: Bad cold with cough. No naps for the last week. Rainy day.

He didn't need directions from us. The game itself taught him what he needed to know. He raced cars all day long. He got blocked by obstacles that quizzed him with questions like: 1 3 4, what is the missing number? Clover, heart, clover, heart, what comes next?

See? Educational.

He played that game ALL DAY LONG. I'm not kidding. He and Steve sat side by side playing games in Steve's office. Ben sat on my lap playing his game while I looked up recipes for kiwi jam. (A friend dropped off eight pounds of tiny, grape-sized kiwis today). Ben played it in the car on the way to McDonalds for lunch. Played it on the way home. Played it in the car on the way to Olive Garden for dinner. Played it on the way home with the car's cabin lights on. Played it at dinner. Watched over Steve's shoulder when Steve tried to play it. Got his head in the way showing Steve how to play it.

Called it his "Learning game."

Played it all day long. Sat on the couch criss-cross applesauce (for those of you born before the PC era, that's what we used to call "Indian-style") all hunched over playing it. Really seriously hunched over.

All day.

I don't think I've ever seen that boy sit still for so long in his entire life.

Wanna get him a game cartridge for Christmas?

Peter Pan.

And Ben's the lead.

Yup. Ben will be playing the part of Peter Pan.

That's quite a leap from last year's play: he was a munchkin. With no lines. In fact, he was a random munchkin who couldn't even remember what he was supposed to do. In his defence, the play started at 7:00 PM: Ben's usual bedtime.

So, what does that mean for us? Well, I'll probably have to come up with some kind of costume but Mr. Howie will let me know what I'm supposed to do. I'll have to begin adjusting Ben's bedtime back somtime before show night so Ben can actually stay up late to perform. I may even have to learn his lines to help him out. And I'll definitely have to pick up a copy of the movie so Ben can see what the story's all about. And we'll probably have to buy a camcorder. And the DVD the school makes of the kids.

But at least I'll almost a full year to worry about it all. The kids start practicing for about 20 minutes every Tuesday. For a year. And then they perform for one quick fast night.

And when is this star-studded performance? June 6th. We've a way to go before we see Ben in all his glory...

So I'm upstairs making the bed (yes, Steve, I am actually making the bed) when I hear the toilet flush. Great; Ben's peeing without reminders. Yea!

And then I hear the flush again. Can he have clogged the toilet? I come downstairs and hear the toilet flush AGAIN.

Alright, something is definitely not right here.

Ben hears me come downstairs and urges me to the bathroom so he can show me something. (Never a good sign...)

I walk in. The lid to the back of the toilet is on the floor. Ben waves me over to look in the tank and flushes. Then he narrates.

"Look! This is how the potty works! The water comes in here. And this anchor makes the water turn off. Do you want to watch?"

So we flush a few more times before putting the lid back on.

That boy is such an engineer at heart...