And on the first day God created NICK

Nick, what can I say about Nick. I chose his name from a fun piece of dialogue in a John Cusak movie called "The Sure Thing." Never pick your kids' names from a comedy. A drama maybe or a documentary if you're really playing it safe, but never a comedy. Nick was a sure thing alright. He came right on his due date - April 1st. It's been April Fool's Day for me ever since.

A brief run down on Nick and his personal educational quest:

Age 2 - learns that if you soak a sock in the cat's water bowl and suck on it you can get your own drink

Age 3 - Learns that an oscillating fan + baby powder makes a great indoor ski hill for your Power Rangers

Age 4 - December - finds switch on furnace in basement and learns that flipping it will make house very cool - again creating a nice ski hill effect for whole family

Age 5 - Decides to heat things up by spinning the fun dial in refrigerator just before Thanksgiving - turkey thaws early that year

Age 6 - Goes back to fascination with winter and creates neat and very fragrant indoor snow storm by emptying a whole shaker of Parmesan cheese around the kitchen (I am assuming this fixation with winter comes from living in Minnesota)

Now we come to age 7. This morning Nick discovers a new way to delight and entertain me.

It is a school day and I get him up for breakfast. He sits down to a bowl of cocoa puffs when I notice he isn't eating and his face is all flushed. I look at him more closely and see a red rash across both cheeks and some sort of red goo coming out of his right ear.

"Nick what happened? Are you okay?"

"I don't know." (This is never a good response coming from Nick).

"Do yo have a fever?"

"I don't know."

I reach for his forehead to check his temperature in the traditional "mom way" when my hand gets stuck to his hair. "What is this!?"

"Nothing?" I try to remove my hand but it takes some effort.

"Alex made me eat Airheads in bed!"

Two quick explanations here. Alex is his bigger brother who is still sleeping like a log so he makes a great scapegoat. Airheads are little slabs of sugary taffy in super bright colors.

My eyes quickly scan over to the remains of yesterday's Easter baskets. Feeling like a real air head myself, I remember that I didn't put the candy away before going to bed last night. I jog into the boy's room to find Nick's pillow hermetically sealed to his sheets and mattress by melted globs of red Airheads the exact same color as the feverish rash-like thing currently on Nick's face.

After scraping the goo from his face and hair I get both boys off to school. Once I'm at work I look at the calendar, take some Excedrin and lay my head on my desk. It is a little over a week until Nick's 8th birthday.