Big Plans

When I was a kid, I loved to draw floor plans of my dream house. Of note, I thought it was the height of hilarity to always include a very small room which I labeled "Servant's Quarters." "Here's your room," I would say to my parents, stifling my laughter. My house would sometimes have a roller rink, perhaps an indoor pool or even a room for my pet penguins. It was gonna be great.

I can see Cameron headed down this same path. This morning, he got out a ruler and a pencil and spent a long time drawing on construction paper. Finally, full of pride, he showed me his "plans." "See," he said as he pointed to a straight line across the paper. "This is the zip line! And it goes from the back door, right here, to my play set. So I can just go out the back door, get on the zip line and zooop! I'm at the swing set so fast!" You could just see that he totally expects me to make a stop at Home Depot this afternoon and get cracking on that zip line. He was so excited about the idea that he enlisted in my help to draw a second set of plans. A ladder will lead to our roof and, on the opposite side of the roof, a zip line will extend to the ground for a speedy descent. "Daddy can use it," he suggested. "Or workmen will see it and be like, 'Oh, look! That house has a zip line! Let's go on their roof!'" 'Cause you know how we're always looking for a way to attract random workmen to our roof . . .