Thor's Id

Hey y'all -

I'm too lazy to look it up, but I'm pretty sure it was Freud who coined the term "id" and described it as  the part of your personality that is all primal instinct and base reactions... the thing that turns your brain into an unsupervised playground. Our inner wild monkey. To understand this concept, you need look no further than the nearest 3 year-old boy.

In particular, you need look no further than Jude, a boy who has been in Laney's class since she first started going to school over a year ago. Your dad is endlessly fascinated and entertained by Jude, and every time they're at the same event, your dad watches him with a dopey grin on his face, thinking, "If it weren't for societal convention, and the fact that I'm looking down the barrel at 40, I too would be beating the hell out of that tree with a racquet because MAN! That looks like fun!"

Last weekend was Jude's birthday, and we all went to the gymnastics place to celebrate.

Cedar was invited to the party, too, which meant that we got to play with her and her mom:

And Thor got to watch Jude beat stuff with a racquet, until the racquet was taken away:

At one point, Jude came up to me with one of his birthday balloons and said, "Here, pop this." "Why?" I asked. He looked at me like I had just asked the lamest question in the world. "Because," Thor answered for their team, "It'll be loud and AWESOME, that's why."

When Thor is poised at the top of a mountain on his skis, looking down at trees and obstacles and a dog that wants to pull him 15 miles an hour, I imagine it's Jude's voice he hears in his ear saying. "Do it! Do it!"

You can always tell how cool a kid's party is by how dramatic the goodbyes are. In this case, Laney and Cedar clung to each other, and then each had to be pulled out of the facility, kicking and screaming.

A+ party.

Love,

Mom