On this beautiful spring day, my eight year old charge, becoming bored with watching his little sister’s soccer practice, begins searching the ground of a small wooded area adjacent to the playing field.   Within minutes, the boy finds the most dangerous stick in the area and begins to swing it in a wild helicopter motion around his head.  He leaps high in the air, fighting invisible enemies.  After several near misses between the stick and the boy’s mouth, I decide to step in.

Nanny:  “Those are some pretty impressive Ninja moves, but I think you should be careful with that big stick.  That would really hurt if it fell on your head.”

Child:  “Nanny, for your information, this is not a big stick and I’m not a Ninja.  This is a Light-Saber, I am a Jedi Master and in case you didn’t notice, I am fighting Darth Maul, one of the meanest bad guys in the entire universe.”

Nanny:  “If you say so, I just want to make sure you don’t knock yourself out with that tree stump while you combat Dorky Darth.”

Child:  “Please, Nanny.  I know exactly what I’m doing.  You see, I have The Force.”

Nanny:  “What does that mean?”

Child:  “The Force is like a magic and I am so good at it that I don’t even have to open my eyes when I’m fighting someone.  The Force tells things to move all by themselves.”

A few minutes later I hear a loud “thwack,” and look up to find my Jedi Master thoughtfully rubbing his eye — massive wooden light-saber on the ground by his feet.

Nanny:  “Whoa, Jedi Master.  What happened? I think I just felt a disturbance in The Force.”

Child:  “That’s not funny, Nanny.”

Nanny:  “I was just wondering if The Force told the light-saber to fall onto your eyeball.”

Child:  “That’s not how it works, Nanny.” He said with lightly veiled irritation.  “Once you are a Master, the force would never allow something to just fall on your eye.  Some negative force has to get in the way of the good force.  I think it was your fault.”

Nanny:  “Mine?”  I’m the negative force?”

Child:  “Yep.  I think you could use some more training.”

Nanny:  “I’ll be sure to get right on that, Master.  In the meantime, let’s put some frozen peas on that unfortunate light-saber injury.”

Child:  “I’m not really injured, Nanny.  My force is too strong for that.”

Nanny:  “I see.  Then Jedi Masters must also possess some mad make-up skills.”