mood swings

We were out at Camp St. Croix's 100th anniversary this past weekend. The weather was lovely, it was a joy to see my kids express some ownership of the camp now that they have a few years of daycroix under their belts, and I had belly laughs with people I hadn't seen for 15-20 years. It is amazing to me how we all remembered different little stories from those summers back in the late 80's, but as soon as someone brought an incident up, the whole story flashed back to me in total color, and I found myself bursting with laughter. I wish that more 80's-90's staff would have made appearances, but overall it was a sweet little weekend.
Of course it would not be complete for Theo unless we made a trip to the camp store. Nothing is finished for Theo unless it is capped off with a little consumer spending. He eagerly cruised the crowded displays of mugs, keychains, and t-shirts all emblazoned with the camp logo. And settled on a mood necklace. A black cord holding a silver pony whose interior is composed of that mood ring stuff. No mention of Camp St. Croix on it, but that did not sway him. He bought it and immediately begin pressing it to his skin and then reading the little label to find out what mood he was in. At first I was thinking 'waste of money!' but then realized that Theo has a lot of moods and any help I could get in reading any of them would be worth any size of investment. All day Sunday he kept getting a reading of solid blue- calm and peaceful- which was great, because it convinced him to act calm and peaceful. This morning he came downstairs, still rubbing his eyes, but with the necklace clasped in his palm, taking his first 'reading' for the day. While he stood there I popped one of our first garden strawberries in his mouth. His eyes lit up and he let out an involuntary groan of delight. Then the reading- it came out a swirl of blue, green, and pink. He did a quick consult of the label to find out what this could possibly mean. Here's our conversation:

Theo: Blue- peaceful- well, I am still feeling all sleepy and calm. Green- slightly anxious- well, I am starting to get excited about going to Grandma and Grandpa's tonight with the cousins. Pink- Love???

Me: Obvisously- that's because you love me so much.

Theo: Yeah. Hmmmm... NO! the pink is for that strawberry!!! I loved that!!! This necklace sure does work!

I felt a little shafted, but I like that Theo is under the impression that there is a tool that can explain himself to him. And to us. Because we sure have found ourselves wondering from time to time.