Lately AJ has been excessively concerned with what people think about him. I didn�t think I was going to have to worry about this until puberty. But I think a different kind of self-consciousness is affecting AJ. I think it has simply never before occurred to him that people might think or talk about him when he�s not around.

Conversations about this topic tend to go something like this.

AJ: Mommy, what if I wore my underwear on my head?

Harriet: Well, then you�d look pretty silly running around the yard playing baseball.

AJ: What would the people say?

Harriet: They�d say, �Help! Help! There�s a little boy with underwear on his head!�

AJ: And what would you say?

Harriet: I�d say, �Hey, underwear-head!�

AJ: (giggles) And what would I say?

Harriet: I don�t know. What would you say?

AJ: I would dance and say, �Underwear-head! Underwear-head!� (demonstrates the dance)

Harriet: Good for you!

�The people� are requested to comment on everything from wardrobe to toilet-flushing. They weigh in on dilemmas great and small, but are generally called in to mediate on the supremely silly. Like whether or not one should wear one�s underwear as a hat.

Hats seem to carry great weight in our house at the moment. I blame Laurie Berkner�s infectious song �This Hat,� currently in regular rotation on the preschooler�s TV channel of choice, Noggin. AJ seems to be under the illusion that my dissertation is being completed for the sole purpose of obtaining a hat. I have to admit, that I may have cultivated that impression. The Ph.D. hat is, indeed, remarkably silly � a floppy, velvet, beret-like construction with a long gold tassel, the academic equivalent of the brass ring. AJ�s favorite hat of the moment, though, is one of several White Sox caps in rotation. He wears it almost any time he leaves the house. For a while he was partial to a beat-up old fez. Riding around on his pint-sized tricycle, he looked like a miniature shriner. But now a miniature version of his father seems to be the image he�s trying to project. At least he�s not sporting his underwear as headgear.

I currently have the house to myself. K. is away on vacation and the boys have gone to my mother-in-law�s this morning so that I may write. It is quiet. There are no AJs hiding behind doors to leap out at me as I pass by, grab my ankles and shout �BOO!� There are no husbands coming down to my office to ask where AJ�s socks are and did I know whether the pair of shorts hanging from his ceiling fan is dirty or clean. The cats are firmly cemented on their respective windowsills within drooling distance of the bird-feeders. The house is clean (more or less, now that the end results of AJ�s fan target practice have been cleared up). In short, not only are my procrastination activities running dry, but I am short of creative inspiration. I suppose I will have to don my dissertation hat and confront my chapter.

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