Harnessing the Power of the Mind

K loves the They Might Be Giants song Hovering Sombrero. Or rather, he loves the refrain, but not the verse. To avoid demands to restart the song every time the refrain ended, JW told K that if he thought hard enough, it would come back. K thoughtfully put his hand to his chin and said, "Hmm." A minute later, he exclaimed, "It came back!" Now every time he hears the song, he does that.

JW encourages the development of K's mental powers in other settings, too. When we're stopped at a red light, he tells K to "think green thoughts." When K got frustrated because he couldn't open the trunk of the car with his hands, JW told him, "You can't open it that way. You have to think really hard. Think about opening... open... open..." "The door to the trunk is pretty heavy," I said. "Maybe we should all think open thoughts." So the three of us put on our thinking caps. K thought as loudly as he could, "HMM!" JW thought so hard that the sheer power of his brain caused his thumb to press down on the car remote in his pocket. PRESTO! K's jaw dropped and then we all started cracking up. We performed this astounding feat several times before we all got distracted by other things.

I think K understands this is a joke. If not, he'll have another item for his list of "Lies My Parents Told Me."

K thinking