It's a Transformer World

If you ever wanted to know how to work Transformers into just about any conversation, read on.

Ian's friend Tyler* let him borrow a Transformer last night and overnight (literally) it has become the thing around which the sun, moon and stars revolve.

"Hey, Mom, ya know what?" he starts, as he starts all sentences these days.

"What?"

"My transformer doesn't like waffles."

"What does he like?"

"He likes huevo frito," Ian explains, referring to how we call fried eggs in our house as Mom and boys work on being bi-lingual to catch up to Papa.

"Did he sleep well last night, Ian?" I ask, remembering that last night, Ian tucked his Transformer - a large silver and yellow robot with a frightening expression on his face and bulky arms and legs - into his pirate hat and covered him with his clown blanket so he wouldn't see any monsters.

"Yeah, Mom, he did, thanks," Ian says, as his manners momentarily appear and work their magic on me like a rare whale sighting on the open ocean.

"Mom, ya know what?"

"What?"

"Everyyyyyyyboooddy's a Transformer," he says.

"Everybody? Even you?" He has to think about this.

"YES!"

"What thing do you transform into?" He has to think a lot about this.

"A MONSTER TRUCK!!" he says, then modifies it: "A RACE CAR monster truck," he says.

"Oh, that's very nice," I say in my most uncool mother voice. "And what about me, what do I turn into?" I ask.

"You're a truck, too, Mom, a blue and red one that has windows," he explains. I'm happy to have windows.

"Ian, do some trucks not have windows?" I ask.

"Yea, sure they do, Mom, they all have windows," he says. My elation at having windows is dashed.

"What about Papa and Julian?" I ask. "What would they turn into?" As we walk through the park, leaf blowers and lawn mowers are making an awful noise. "Would Julian turn into a lawnmower?" I ask. Ian is horrified by this suggestion.

"NOOOO, Mommmm. Tranformers don't make lawnmowers. They only make trucks and race cars," he says. C'mon Mom.

"Ian, do you know where we are going next week?" I ask, deciding I have nothing more to add to the Transformer discussion.

"Yea! Grandmommy's house!" he says.

"And what are we going to eat?" I ask.

"Turkey!" he yells, and leaps into the air.

"Are turkey's Transformers, too?" I ask, deciding I might have the hang of this game after all.

"Sure, the turkey makes a race car robot turkey," he says.

We arrive at school. Ian plops down onto the carpet with a friend and a bin full of building blocks. They decide they're going to build - what else? - a Transformer. I warn the teacher, apologize, and make my escape before I get turned into something else and, God forbid, lose my precious windows.


*The name has been changed to protect our Transformer sources