of snow and presidents

[Editor's note: Just so we're clear, snow and presidents have nothing to do with each other, so don't expect some big fancy-schmancy wrap up at the end of this essay. And we use the term "essay" in the loosest sense possible.]

As if April couldn't get any better, now it's a freakin' snow day.

Yes, the kids are thrilled, thank you for asking. I'm ok with it, not that you care. The roads actually look pretty bad, but PHF went out for breakfast with an old boss so he'll give me the low-down on the snow-down. (What a delightfully strange and fascinating life he leads. Breakfast out? What will they come up with next? Pizza delivery or food in malls, maybe?)

When we named the wee lad, back before he was wee but I was not (swollen with 8 pounds 13 ounces of chubby baby, as I was) (Yeah, yeah, I was huge. People were asking me two months early if I was having twins)... anyway, we had a touch of trouble coming up with an agreeable name. The girl name was set in stone - she's named after our maternal grandmothers and a darling name it is too, thank you. But finally I suggested a new boy name. I don't even remember coming up with it but we were walking in an alley when I suggested it. The irony of this will not be lost on those who know my son's name.

PHF thought. And thought. Finally he nodded. "I like it. It sounds presidential."

The irony of this will not be lost on those who know PHF and The Lad personally.

I've always maintained that it takes a strange bird indeed to enter politics, much less to strive to attain the Presidency. And my son, love him as I do, is a strange bird. Actually, I revel in his oddness. He's a... creative brilliance in progress.

Or something.

And he's always thinking.

Last night PHF read him Aurthur Meets the President. Aurthur is a little rodent-critter, I don't know exactly what, and so are all the characters in the book. The President is a leering, prematurely gray woodchuck or something - this was written back in the Clinton days; clearly Bush would have been depicted as a skunk, or perhaps a rat - and there's this chubby squirrel wearing a blue dress in the background (ok, that's a lie, there's not) but anyway the Lad said, "Maybe someday I'll meet the President."

PHF, keeping in mind the exact amount of pressure to keep up on your firstborn so that they achieve a level of success through which a parent can vicariously live, said, "Maybe someday you'll be president."

And the Lad replied, "Oh Dad, I'd get coffee all over me."

Clearly a legend in the making.