SUSPENSION noun


the act of hanging: the state of being hung : the means by which something is suspended
In Casa Maven, reality enjoys permanent suspension.

Spawnling walked up to where I was escaping my noisy reality chatting on Facebook this evening and pulled up a chair. He looked at me seriously for a moment and waited until my eyes apprehensively left my laptop's screen and rested on his. I could tell this was important.

"Mom," he declared, "I think I've figured out how Gutsy caught The Angers."

The Angers, in case my readers are not aware, is a disease coined by my youngest gremlin. Spawnling insists it's infectious.  Every time he and Gutsy get in an argument (which, at the moment, is about 75% Spawnling-induced) he accuses his big brother of having The Angers. This, of course, leads to loads of laughter from Gutsy and anyone else around, which makes Spawnling catch his own ailment and stomp out of the room yelling, " Stupid head!" or some such.

My four-year-old hatchling has never elaborated on exactly how people catch The Angers, so I turned my chair toward his and asked for his theory. This is what he told me, word for word:

"Remember a long time ago when Gutsy had that ice cap? Well, maybe it went into his body and created a second heart that is full of angry faces, and they created a power source that shooted a bunch of angers out that included a bunch of angry sources that went all over his body. So, he got The Angers ."

Well, that makes perfect sense.

And yes, it did take everything I had not to:

• Laugh hysterically
• Look at my screen while I quickly typed out everything he told me so I wouldn't forget it (thankfully I'm quite good at typing without looking - years of being a geek have served me well)
• Compliment him on his ever-expanding vocabulary
• Correct his poorly conjugated verb (the inner editor cringed a little)

Four-year-olds are so cool. I was commiserating with another mom this morning as we walked our preschoolers to class. We both agreed that if we could bottle up their innocence, humour, and imagination at this age, we could live happily ever after. Suspending our tedious adult lives for a little while and enjoying the beauty of a young child's world is what having kids is all about.

Well, that and cleaning up puke in the middle of the night at least three times a year, but I digress.

I downloaded some pics off my camera tonight and found a few gems I had completely forgotten about. But I need to explain something: currently, Gutsy sleeps in a tent. We set it up in his room not too long ago, and he loved it so much that he wanted to take his bunk bed out.

Yes, we really did let him do this. He has a matress on the floor of the tent, a monitor, keyboard and mouse at the opening to watch streaming video, and he is in absolute heaven. We're either the best or worst parents on the planet, but I don't care which. You're only young once, right? This is a picture of him from tonight:

What 8-year-old boys' dreams are made of.

These are the hidden gems from the pre-tent stage. He figured out how to hang a hammock of sorts from his bunk bed. It was tied so well that he, both his brothers (including the huge teenage one) and our cocker spaniel could sit in it without falling to the floor - or the bottom bunk. I did a little photo shoot of him in it and got a few great shots of him in suspension. It looks like Dr. Spawn misdiagnosed his brother: There's no way this kid has a case of The Angers.