I say 'Tomato,' you hear 'Tornado'...

I'm stepping outside of my grief for a moment to share a smile. This does require a bit of a back-story, though.

1.  Matt was a meteorology major when we were in school. Since we went to school in Indiana, he was able to partake of various storm chasing opportunities and even spent a couple of weeks one summer driving all over Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, and other assorted flat and tornado-prone states chasing the elusive funnel cloud.

2.  Joseph has never been afraid of storms. Until a couple of weeks ago. For some reason, he decided that thunderstorms made him 'a little bit scared.' Matt explained to him how we all like thunderstorms and when he was in college, he would drive around to find the big thunderstorms. Both of us love a good thunderstorm, so The Boy is going to have to get over that. We'll get there.

Now, the rest of it: Joseph and I were driving to my folk's (dammit, this sucks) mom's house last weekend and we were talking about planting a garden this spring. He decided that he wanted to plant pumpkins, because he likes pumpkins. We discussed beans, peas, and cucumbers, too. He wasn't as excited about those, but could deal with it. Then I said that we could plant tomatoes, too. He pauses and comes back with, 'I don't love tomatoes.' I responded with something to the effect of, well, you don't have to eat them, but it will be fun to watch them grow. He says, 'I'm a little bit scared of tomatoes.' I'm baffled. He keeps explaining: 'My daddy used to put on his hat and his sunglasses and go and find the thunderstorms, and I'm a little bit scared of tomatoes.' Lightbulb. I promptly called Matt and explained to him that, unbeknownst to him, he had been chasing the elusive tomato all of those years ago. I've been a little slow on correcting this misconception because I think that it's just so darned cute! I'll probably rot for that. Oh well, I can deal with it.

I love my kid.