Sweetness

You hear a lot about little kids before you have your own, and you form your own opinions based on the ones you see, in malls, restaurants, on airplanes, etc. Generally you think most frequently of adjectives like noisy, whiny, fussy, demanding. And other less than flattering terms which usually relate to how much of a pain they can be. What you don't hear as much, or at least I didn't, was how sweet they can be. Jack, at least, is showing us that on a regular basis.

- Before running off to play with something, he invites us to join him. "Do you want to play with my cars, Daddy?" "Do you want to play with me, Mommy?" "Do you want to play with my trains?"

- So we're playing with his farm or somesuch, and he says "Which horse will you play with?" Well, Jack, I'll play with the white one. "No, I want to play with the white one. You'll play with the brown one, okay, Daddy?" All righty then. "Which car will you play with?"

- His earnestness is similarly entertaining to us. If there's a story, or toy, or concept he hasn't encountered before, he'll say "I never never heard of that before." Or, "I never never saw that before." I'm not sure this is as funny in print; maybe his slightly wide eyes and sincere voice help make it.

- The other day I was holding Jack as Aunt Taffy, Uncle Ekan, and the girls were leaving, and Jack wanted to hug Ekan goodbye. It became a big 3-man hug, which I dubbed the Man Hug. Well, Jack committed that one to memory, with the result being that on occasion he'll just throw out his arms toward me and say, "Man Huggggg!" It was particularly amusing when we were eating a pasta meal, which invariably results in him having pasta sauce all over his hands, face, and shirt. He threw his arms out to me, droplets of tomato sauce spraying everywhere. Through a red-cheeked smile, he said, "Man HuGGGGGGGGGGGG!!" Um, I said, trying not to laugh too hard. How about after dinner, huh?