It Looks Better That Way

A small window into our lives:

 A couple of nights ago I sat down with the laptop and discovered that the desktop display was now turned sideways.  

Just 5 more minutes Mom.

Me (showing Robert this laptop): "WHAT did he do?"   

Robert: "Um, no idea."
            Me: "How do I fix it."  (Tap, tap, tap on the keyboard) 

Robert: "ABSOLUTELY no idea. Do we still have the instruction manual?" 

Me (growing sense of panic here): "Joshua, WHAT DID YOU DO?"  

Joshua comes running over and glances at the screen. "I changed it." 

Me: "I can see you changed it. WHY?"  

Joshua: "Wanted to." 

Me: "Any idea how to change it BACK?" 

Joshua leans over, pushes a few button and glares at me. "Like that. Looked better the other way." 

And he runs off.  Robert and I are left looking at each other, shaking our heads. Sure enough, the screen was back to normal. Abigail is sitting on the floor, watching all of us, soaking everything in - probably wondering when it's going to be HER turn to push the buttons.

 Here’s the problem:  while I’m shocked at what just happened, I really shouldn't be – because he’s brilliant, because his brain works in ways that I can never imagine and the reality is that I just need to catch up. We get that question all of the time, “You know he’s brilliant, right?” I love it, because it almost always comes on the heels of my little man doing something completely NOT age appropriate – and the speaker is astonished that it has occurred to him to unplug/ take apart/ modify whatever electric gadget has caught his eye for that moment. I hate it, because it seems that the only times he is readily given credit for being smart is when he does something he shouldn't be doing. We keep joking that he’s probably going to grow up to be some type of engineer – the more pieces and parts the better. Right now he says he wants to be a bus driver and "Go 60, always go 60." It’ll be interesting to see what happens.