Aidan has his morning rituals.

After getting up, and going to the toilet (alleluia!) then washing his hands, he goes outside and nabs the newspaper for me. Then it’s upstairs to give me the cat dishes to clean, retrieve the cat food from the closet/pantry, and place the newly cleaned and filled cat dishes back on the cat mat.

This morning, after ascending the stairs and stealing a glance at the masthead of the newspaper, he spied a small 2″x2″ graphic with a purple “S” and a backward yellow “R”.

A: Look!  It’s a picture of Toys’R’Us on the newspaper!  It’s Toys’R’Us on Broadway!

And certainly it was.  Or, it’s a partial photo of its sign.  The sign is distinctive because it’s overlaid on top of the old (and historic) ‘Bowmac’ sign.

Aidan is *so* brainwashed with corporate imagery.

But ‘on Broadway’?!?  We were taking the bus downtown on Canada Day and he said something else (now forgotten) that made me turn to Gwen and remark that he’ll know all the street names and how to navigate around the city by the time he’s five.

Today, after getting up, Aidan notices a pigeon had left a deposit on his water table.  He yelled in from the balcony:

A: Daddy, what’s this?

D: That’s bird poop!

Aidan looked at me oddly, came in, gathered a few letters from his magnetic letter board and put them in my hands.

A: Daddy, now you have word poop on you!

D: No, Aidan, I said “Bird poop” not “Word poop”

A: < descends into toddler breakdown >

Busy day today. WWFM III in Coquitlam, cleaning, packing, and these gems…

A: Are we going to the grocery store?

Me: No, we are going to the highway.

{We drive towards the highway, but then the GPS suggests taking the road beside the grocery store}

A: Are we going to the grocery store?

Me: No, but we’re driving by it.

{We come to a stop just outside the grocery store}

A: I’m confused. There’s the grocery store! Are we going to the grocery store?

Me: …

Later, whle cleaning his room:

A: I get knocked down! But I get up again! You ain’t never going to keep me down!

I’m not sure he can pronounce ‘Chumbawumba’, but he sure likes the song.

After having ‘locked’ his mother into the hall by the washing machine (her exit was impeded in one direction by the stroller that lives in our hallway and in the other direction by the door he just rudely closed), I made a big fuss out of it.

After a short while, Aidan tells me:

This is a super big problem! We need to change the story!

It makes much more sense (and is quite funny) if you’ve seen any episodes of this!