Scene: Harriet�s family room, where AJ and Harriet are watching the Olympics � men�s biathlon, to be precise. The competition cuts to a commercial break and the sounds of �Daydream Believer� fill the air and an e6ay ad comes on.

AJ: Why are they throwing �its� at that boy?

Harriet: It�s an ad. They�re trying to tell you that if you want �it� you can get �it� at the company that�s making the ad.

AJ: But why are they hitting him?

Harriet: I don�t know.

AJ: That�s not very nice.

Madison Avenue is not working the four-year-old contingent. Yet despite AJ�s failure to understand advertising, he has no questions about why a bunch of grown men are strapping boards to their feet, skiing uphill as well as down, and stopping every now and then to shoot things. There is no explaining the preschool brain.

Actually, it�s not that hard to get. AJ loves the excitement of the race, the waving of flags, the clanging of cowbells along the route. We were hoping to see the medal ceremony, because I�m pretty sure he�d also like the national anthem scene as much as I do, but it was not shown.

Thanks to the birthday party AJ attended yesterday, I missed the opening ceremonies, but in the recaps I am glad to see that they were as weird as always. I�d be curious to know when international athletic competition became synonymous with weird performance art. It seems an odd pairing, but it�s going on for some time.

The birthday party, however, was it�s own kind of performance art. Here�s the concept: turn 25 kids, all under the age of 6, loose in a room full of playground equipment, add cupcakes and pizza to stir them up. Then make them stop while only one of the kids gets piles of toys. Watch what happens. Actually, it was not entirely unlike last week�s Puppy Bowl (�The Passion. The Pageantry. The Puddles.�). Or maybe the Lord of the Flies.

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