Made you look!

We now officially have a 6-year-old in the house, and we’ve entered a world full of jokes.

Yesterday when we were driving to school, Leo was in fine form with his “Made you look” shtick.

“Hey, Mama! There’s an Angry Bird on the ceiling!” he called out. “Made you look!”

Then he laughed, and so did I.

“Hey, Mama! You have something on your glasses,” he said. “Made you look!”

“Hey, Mama! There’s Bigfoot walking down the street. Made you look!”

We laughed together again and again.

Then suddenly he realized we had the heat on in the car, and we were taking a box of popsicles to school for his birthday snack with his class. He got serious for a moment. This was, after all, important.

“Mama, I don’t want the popsicles to melt,” he said. “Can you turn on the air conditioning instead?”

And so, while everyone else in Maryland was blasting their heat on their morning commutes, we shivered in the air conditioning, exhaling our smoky breath inside the car. Anything to keep the popsicles frozen.

Despite the cold, a minute later I heard Leo’s voice come from the back seat again.

I glanced quickly into the rearview mirror, and our son burst into peals of laughter.

“Made you look!” he called out, still giggling.

Whew. He almost got me that time. I’d better keep my eyes on this boy of ours. Before I know it, he’ll be all grown up.