The Kid Finds a Loophole

Recently Emily decided to change the pictures around in Joshua's room, a project that began with replacing the scattering of old framed snapshots competing for space on the bookshelves with relatively current pictures of people important in his life, and continued with removing wedding pictures and oddball landscapes from the walls in favor of art with a Brooklyn or baseball theme. (Or, in the case of his poster celebrating the first-ever Cyclones game, both.)
After some mild debate, we opted to involve the kid in the important parts of the planning, which is the kind of apparently straightforward parenting decision that would turn a Park Slope blog into cyber-Fallujah inside of two days. On the one hand, it's his room, so duh. On the other hand, at four and a half Joshua is naturally still inclined to a certain amount of magical thinking — plus he has his father's death-before-dishonor mulishness and can argue like a trial lawyer on trucker speed. So we broached the subject with exquisite caution, only to find our son in World's Most Agreeable Boy mode, and even demonstrating a mildly precocious eye for composition.
And then, as we were surveying this little family miracle, Joshua calmly announced that he wanted a picture of Jose Reyes in his room. And a picture of David Wright. Reyes should be fielding, he said, and Wright should be hitting a home run. And the two pictures should be in the same frame.
We can do that, Emily and I agreed after about a tenth of a second.
Joshua's request didn't quite come out of nowhere, as you might suspect from current environs. He has no shortage of Met gear for whatever occasion might arise, is the proud owner of a Met bobblehead with his picture for a face, and likes having the origin of his baseball signed by Wright, Pedro and Beltran repeated for him. (His cousin is a Delta flight attendant who occasionally draws a Met charter. Wright, by the way, signed the ball “Joshua, see you in the Big Leagues!” David Wright rocks.) And Joshua usually sees the first inning or two of each weeknight game, with another inning or so on the radio in his room while getting ready for bed, and knows the weekend brings those wonderful things known as day games, current Build-an-Ark weather excepted.
Still, you never know what will take, so we were pretty much the proudest parents in Brooklyn after receiving our marching orders. Now the only question is how big a truck Joshua will drive through this loophole in the parental rules governing presents and requests. A picture of Reyes and Wright, with Reyes fielding and Wright hitting a home run and they're in the same frame? Coming right up, son. Commission a copy of that Madame Tussaud's wax figure? We'll look into it. Build lifesize statues of Reyes and Wright out of platinum and sapphires? Hey, that's why they invented the second mortgage.
The photos arrived last week — Reyes is airborne on the pivot, having vaulted a prone Ryan Howard, while Wright is hitting a single in Game 3 of the NLDS. (I know, he wanted a home run. Hush.) The pictures were pretty cheap. The dry-mounting, double matte and framing? Um … the pictures were pretty cheap. Did I bat an eye at the price tag? Not really. The value of helping the kid grow up true to the orange and blue? I don't need a MasterCard commercial to tell me that.