(Ward’s  response to The Hat Trick post)

Your first two epiphanies were more or less spot on, but I
wanted to emphasize that I never, ever considered someone would think
I was pulling some kind of sick prank of Thorin.

It simply never occurred to me, mostly because of Epiphany 1.
That’s not to say that I wasn’t trying to be a little provocative due
to Epiphany 2. I mean, no one ever says to a kid who wants to grow up
and be Derek Jeter, “The chances of that ever happening are slim to
none – 1% slim and 99 % none. You’ll be lucky if you make it onto your
high school varsity team.”

I’m not saying that Thorin wants to be President or even that I want him to
be President but he has as much right to wear that hat as any other
4-year-old.  It goes back to when we were trying to prepare our families for Thorin
and my point was, “So he’ll never be a rocket scientist. So what? I’m
not a rocket scientist. What’s my excuse?”

Everything is amazing and we should be happy.  We don’t know what
Thorin will or won’t be. Maybe not President, but who’s to say he
doesn’t end up with a job in the White House working for the
President? But, you’ll never hear me tell Thorin that.  As far as I’m
concerned if he wants to be President or Derek Jeter or Princess Kate
he can be any of those things.

The only sick joke I can think of in all of this is someone telling a
4-year-old that he’ll never be any one thing.

Finally, what else was I going to buy, an Orioles hat? Fat friggin chance.