Last night, Reid and I were cuddling in bed, talking about our day. I asked him whether he had fun sledding, and playing with Grandpa. Then I asked him if he knows who Grandpa is.

“Your daddy,” he replied. “Right,” I told him. Then I described how, when I was three, I would snuggle with my daddy the same way Reid was snuggling with me.

“And, someday, when you have kids, I will be their grammy.” Which is hilarious. “And you will be their daddy.” Which is even more hilarious.

Then I asked Reid, “When you have babies, what will you name them?”

He replied, without missing a beat, “Byron, Icarus and Perseus.”

So, seriously, even in the next generation I’m not getting a girl?

Reid was so relaxed that they actually took him and me in for our cleanings at the same time. As the hygienist was torturing me, I could hear Reid charming all the ladies in the next room. Of course, he was done before I was (his teeth are smaller in both number and size). So I was still in mid-cleaning, mouth full of implements, when they brought Reid out into the hallway to get his post-appointment swag.

I listened to him choose which color toothbrush he wanted, and pick a sticker from the rack. Then the receptionist led him over to the toy treasure chest and told him he could choose something. He rooted around, and I heard him come up exclaiming, “Bubbles!”

Then I heard this, “Oh, you want bubbles? Okay, but that’s a pink bottle. That’s a girl color. Let’s put that back and get you a different color, one for boys.”

The hygienist must have thought she did something really wrong, because I started screaming, “No! No! There is no such thing as ‘boy colors’ and ‘girl colors’! All the colors are for everyone!”

But since there were about three dental tools and a hose in my mouth at the time, it sounded like, “Naaah! Naaah! Thar nan finks be kras and grr kras! Aw kras fo ebery n!”

So nobody knew why I was absolutely losing my mind, and they continued blithely on. Reid ended up with an orange bottle of bubbles. I finished my cleaning (the dentist told me I was a very good girl). We checked out and I somehow managed not to smack the receptionist either physically or verbally.

But I know that the next time this discussion comes up in our house o’ many boys – as it does on a weekly basis – Reid will bring up this independent confirmation that boys can’t like pink. And year after year of Mommy telling you something can’t defeat one stranger offhandedly confirming that the opposite is true.

Then I asked the question I only ask if I am in a generous mood, “Do you want squares or triangles?” Today, the Universe obviously wanted to punish me, because he responded, “Circles.”

When I cut it into triangles anyway, telling him I couldn’t do circles, Reid disappeared and some sort of terrible banshee-like monster arrived in his place. “Cirrrrrrrrcles! Cirrrrrrrrrrrrrrrcles! Can’t eat this! Cirrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrcles!” Oh, the tears. The wailing. The kicking of feet and pounding of fists.

So I used my little butter knife to carve those triangles into four disgusting little squashed, half-oval, half-circular sandwich morsels. That did the trick, and Reid calmed down…then ate, as usual, about one and a half bites of the whole sandwich.

Never one to turn down anything free, especially if it is worth hundreds of dollars, we jumped at the chance for him to participate.

Obviously, I didn’t want Reid to be scared about this experience. So I did my best to prepare him for what it would be like, how he’d have to leave Mommy and go in another room, but I would be right there in the building. I didn’t really know what the testing itself would be like, except that it was described as “game-type” evaluations. So I explained to Reid that would play games and show the “lady” how well he could talk.

I know that word-association games are often used when testing young children. So I used that as an example for Reid. For days before the exam, we played. I would say, “Car” and he would respond, “Drive.” I’d throw out “Sandwich” and he’d respond, “Eat.” I said “Dog” and, quick as could be, he’d react with, “Woof.” I couldn’t believe how good he was. We’d sit and play with eight-year-old Mack, and Reid was usually quicker than his big brother.

So the day of the evaluation came. We drove the 45 minutes to the office and waited for our turn. The tester came to take Reid and he was chattering at her all the way down the hallway, “We’re going to do testing. I get to do it because I am three. Can I hold your hand?” I thought, “Oh, he is so going to ace this.”

The testing took about 90 minutes, most of which I spent filling out the 47 different forms they gave me. Let me tell you how fun that was. First was the form where I had to supply the various ages at which Reid met different developmental milestones – sitting up, standing, walking, saying 2-3 words together, etc. Well, I could remember perfectly all the ages where my first-born did those things, and some of the ages for Aidan, my middle child. But, for Reid, I felt like every answer could have been, “Somewhere between five months and 35 months.” I know its a cliché that we don’t allow our subsequent children to astonish us the way the first one does, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true.

Then came the forms where we had to answer questions about our own parenting, how happy we are doing it and how well we think we are performing. Reading the statement, “I feel that I am being the best parent I can be to my child” and realizing that my answer was either “somewhat agree” or “somewhat disagree” is seriously eye-opening.

Finally were the forms where we had to evaluate our child’s development and behavior….also known as the forms with ridiculous questions. Remember, this study is for three year olds. So who is going to answer “never” to the question, “Does your child ever whine?” Or “Does your child have difficulty waiting his turn?” Or my favorite, “Does your child become overly frustrated when faced with what is only a small obstacle?” (Here is when I was glad that I was filling out the form about Reid, not about me.)

At the end of the final form, it asked me whether I thought my child’s intelligence was A) Very low, B) Somewhat below average, C) Somewhat above average or D) Superior. I thought for a minute, and almost went with C. Then I remembered how quickly my little star mastered word association, and I circled D. (We also had to assess the intelligence of the child’s mother and father. I’ll keep those answers to myself.)

Finally, Reid came out of the room. He had a sticker and a lollipop and was ready to go. We were told we’d get the results in about six weeks. On the way out to the car, I asked Reid, “Did you play the game where the lady says a word, and then you say a word?” He replied, “Yes.” “Awesome,” I thought. I knew it.

“Can you think of a word she said?” “Dog.” “Oh, that’s one of the ones we did! What did you say back?”

“Dog.”

“She said ‘Dog’ and then you just said ‘Dog’ back?” “Uh huh.”

I should have gone with C. Or maybe B.

After pizza and the usual period of indiscriminately tearing around the house, everyone settled down for popcorn and a movie. The evening’s feature presentation was Earth, Disney’s recent nature documentary. It didn’t have any sarcastic superheroes or talking rodents, but it managed to keep the kids’ attention nonetheless.

As usual with nature documentaries, this one eventually showed a high-tension chase, with a speedy predator going after something slower and doomed. In this case it was a cheetah and a Thompson’s gazelle.

Everyone had a different reaction to the thrilling sequence. Each, I think, demonstrates well the way our brains work at different ages.

Thirty-somethings Byron and I wondered how they managed to get these shots. How long do these people have to sit still, in the jungle or on the tundra, waiting for the chase to happen? Can they bring a book or an iPod? Wow, think of the peace and quiet. And what kind of cameras do they use? The clarity is amazing. It’s crazy how technology keeps advancing.

Elementary-school-age Mack, Kiley and Aidan were yelling, “Is the cheetah going to catch him? The gazelle is pretty fast! Is the gazelle going to get away? What is the cheetah going to do to him? He’s going to eat him, isn’t he! Gross! Is there going to be blood? Will we see the blood? How much blood?”

Three-year-old Reid said nothing through the whole chase. He seemed riveted by the action, deep in thought. Then he turned to us and said, “I wish I had a tail.”

Anyway, he just woke up and I asked him (as I always do), “What did you dream about?”

“Darth Vader was chasing me.”

“Oh no! Were you scared?”

“No.”

“Really? I would have been scared.”

“Grandpa was holding my hand.”

Reid looks so cute in his little soccer outfit. The cleats are each about the size of a computer mouse, then you have these enormous, thick socks that go up to mid thigh. The ball reaches up to his knees.

He may look little out there, but Reid was ready to get on the field. He attended his first soccer practice, for brother Mack, on the day he came home from the hospital.

The bee gave him immediate, negative feedback.

He’s had many of the simpler tests and nothing showed up. So now we’re on to the big stuff. He had an upper GI this morning, which is a test to try to locate problems in the stomach and diaphragm. He had to drink a lot of barium (which the tech flavored with Hershey’s syrup for him, but which still was pretty gross), then stand and lie in a variety of positions on an x-ray table, sipping the barium the whole time, as they photographed him.

He did a very good job. The doctor told me that he didn’t see any obvious ulcers or tumors, which is good news. Apparently, ulcers in four years olds are more common than you’d think.

After that we went across the street and he had four vials of blood drawn. That was far more traumatic for Aidan, but we had a lab technician there who was quick, no nonsense, and got the stick the first time despite Aidan thrashing as hard as he could, screaming, and having difficult veins because he’d fasted 12 hours for the upper GI. I could have kissed her. This is the same lab where I brought Reid when he was nine months old, and took my time explaining to the tech that he had difficult veins, and that we’d had many problems in the past, and we’d had to tie him down and go into his head, and it took many tries, yadda yadda, and she nodded at me, turned around, and had the needle in his vein in about three seconds. I am never going anywhere else.

Next we have to collect some stool and turn that in. That we get to collect at home, Yay. Apparently, we use saran wrap.

Anyway, maybe something will turn up in these tests to explain his stomach, and maybe it won’t. We have to wait until mid-August to see a pediatric gastroenterologist, believe it or not. But we got a new Zantac prescription, so at least we can make him feel better while we wait to see if they can diagnose him.

I had promised him that if he did a good job at the upper GI, we could go to Safeway and get him a doughnut and a soda. As he’s in the middle of the test, I hear his little voice from the machine, “Mommy, remember, after this I get a doughnut, soda, and candy.” I replied, “I don’t remember saying anything about candy!” The doctor and the tech laughed and the doctor said, “He’s kind of running the show right now, mom.”

Later the tech told me to make sure Aidan got a lot to drink today, “…and things without caffeine.” Feeling like Champion White Trash Mom, I replied, “So, no Mountain Dew, then?” Aidan piped up, “No, I want diet Coke.” And we left, to the sound of dueling banjos in the distance.

Blank stare.

Well, about half an hour ago he walked up and handed it to me, out of the blue.