Da Count - Flying Toast

I love the fact that my son's mind is constantly tuned in to the "imagination station" -- ie, he's not gaining thrills from watching too many television programs or videos but that he's getting them from the wonder of the things his mind can come up with.

Here's a perfect example.

A few weeks ago, when he was helping me make toast, he was getting frustrated when the toast popped up.

"No, it didn't work!" he shouted, and pushed the lever on the toaster back down.

I was watching and could see that the toast was a little too light. I hadn't realized he preferred his toast dark and "well done" like his old man.

When the toast popped back up a few minutes later, much much darker and on the verge of burning, he shook his head, gave a frustrated grunt and said. "It didn't work! Try it again!"

"No," I panicked, reaching forward to stop him from pressing the lever down again. "It'll burn. There'll be huge billows of smoke. The fire alarms will go off. Mommy will be upset. I'll be sleeping in the garage again."

"But it didn't work!" he shouted, very frustrated.

"What do you mean? The toast is dark. It worked."

"No it didn't. It didn't pop up."

"Sure," I said. "It popped up. Look."

"No, it didn't," he insisted, crossing his arms. "The toast is supposed to fly up in the air, do a loop de loop and then land on my plate."

I finally understood. You see, my mind was tuned to mundane reality, instead of my four year old's very cool Imagination Station, so I completely missed that fact.

But it really made me start to wonder. Flying toast would be a really cool thing. Why hasn't someone designed a toaster with two settings. One, a setting to determine the darkness of the toast and. Two, a setting to determine how much force will be applied when the toast pops up.

That way you'd be able to control not just the amount of toasting that occurs, but whether or not you want it to pop up normally, or the fun, thrilling, flip through the air way as desired by my son (and now by me).

Now wouldn't that be a cool thing?

This week, I'm counting how fortunate I am to be able to reap so many benefits from tuning in to my son's Imagination Station. :) Thanks, Alexander.