You gotta love a seven-year-old grandson who can’t get over the odd pattern in the tines of a salad fork that don’t exist in the regular one.
Or asks that his next birthday present be an old-fashioned Bissell carpet sweeper—that to his eye works just fine without all the noise of a vacuum.
Or wonders why on earth I go to the trouble of putting six colorful throw pillows on my bed when I only need one for sleeping.
Really two, since he was inclined to join me here rather than stare at the little red light on the TV from the guest bed.
He’s often a solemn small guy, but delighted to free the bounds of earth chasing scarves out of a science museum air machine. Or scrambling up a climbing wall, happy to let go and bounce down when the next handhold is out of reach.
Practical, when I apologized for our water bottles heating up in the sun, he said, simply, “It’s water.”
Instantly competitive when sharing the opportunity to pitch against another kid at a machine that recorded the speed of his fastballs. Or against himself on those climbing walls: “This time I’ll see if I can go all the way around on purple.”
Modest. He made darn sure that I was busy and NOT inclined to help when he took his shower.
Gullible. At precisely the age to take miracle cures and science experiments on YouTube as gospel. Of course you can put a banana on top of a cactus and grow a banana. And he watches a lot of YouTube—preferably when eating.
A budding cook, in complete command of his own perfectly fried breakfast egg or of a hot dog-ramen combo.
Vocabulary rich, and even more important, willing to ask the meaning of a word or phrase that he didn’t know.
Free, for a couple days from the gang of three sisters whom he perceives to make his life a misery.
And caught, in all the contradictions of being a little boy trying to “man up” when, in fact, he’d rather be comforted.
I am still ruminating on his current motto, his strategy for dealing with those pesky sisters: “A punch for a pinch.”
I counseled walking away. Taking the fun, the reward, out of such encounters for the pinch-er. He was stupefied—disbelieving that I’d advocate such an approach.
But isn’t it really the billion dollar question around our globe: when do we punch back against pinchers or when do we walk away. And will they stop? ©
