Cheers!

"I've never really been into champagne."

This is what Hammerhead said to me this morning as I was packing his peanut-butter sandwich and chocolate chip cookies into an empty Cost Plus World Market plastic bag, so he could take them with him to SCHOOL, where he spends his WEEKDAYS, since he is a CHILD in SEVENTH GRADE.

I had to laugh. "Oh really? Not like that single-malt scotch phase you went through back when you were ten?" He got mad. He didn't know what I was talking about, exactly, but he knew I wasn't taking him seriously.

"I mean it!" he said. "I don't get why some people think it's so great."

Really, really useful insight into Hammerhead's psyche, as my darling husband Perfect Man pointed out to me later. This was not misuse of an expression, the kind you might hear from a precocious four-year-old, trying out something he's just learned without realizing its full meaning. Hammerhead truly thinks he is a completely formed adult, and that his wisdom and life experience put him on a par with any other adult on the planet--except, of course, for me, his flawed and doubting stepmother. Me, he's got an edge over.