I Love That

Poor Little Cub, he has no idea that his Mommy uses her internet world to vent all the challenges he throws her way. That doesn't end up giving outsiders the full picture. It's about time he gets credit for all the ways he's wonderful.

He is gentle.
I cannot remember a single time he has struck out at another human being. During baby/toddler years he may have experimented with his body, learning what happens with flailing hands. And I won't say the occasional slap hasn't occurred accidentally during 'rougher' play with his friends. But I have never seen him purposefully, angrily, intentionally hit a person. Even when some of his friends have smacked him around and damn near walloped the crap out of him, the most I've ever seen him do is try to push away the hands hitting him. He doesn't retaliate physically. Ever. I love that.

He is polite.
He knows his please's, thank you's, may I's, and pardon me's. He waits until everyone is finished at the table, and then clears his own things. He doesn't touch 'grown up' things in anyone else's house without first asking. He asks his friends if he can play with their toys rather than barging in and grabbing them (for the most part). With only a small reminder, he thanks people for coming to play, and thanks them for having him over at their house. He says 'Mommy, may I please have a drink?' and 'Thank you, Mommy' when he gets it. He's learning very early and very well how to live a life full of manners. I love that.

He is conscientious.
This kid doesn't break toys. His cars and trains may race around all day, but they don't smash and crash. He kicks the crap out of the balls outside, but he doesn't poke them with sticks to try to pop them. Even as a baby/toddler, he had great fun stacking and building blocks, but wasn't all that interested in knocking them over afterwards. Once his hands were physically capable, he made sure to always turn the pages of his books carefully so as not to rip them. He sees 'life' in his possessions and doesn't take joy in 'injuring' them. I love that.

He's easy-going and has a sense of humor.
He may be a hot-head to us when he wants his way with something, but with his peers, he's pretty darn chilled out. While wrestling with a friend who barely weighs 30 lbs (Q-Bert), our 44-lb gentle giant couldn't keep the ear-to-ear grin off his face. And even though he could have easily squashed Q-Bert, and even though they were scrapping for possession of a ball, tumbling around on the ground, legs vice-gripping heads, body-slamming each other into the ground, crocodile-death-rolling all over the place .... he couldn't stop smiling. And he was even losing! Moments of frustration flicker across his face, but then if he sees others smiling, he simply can't help himself. When he doesn't watch where he's going as he walks and full-face splats into trees, he takes that flash-second to look around and decide whether to laugh or cry, then invariably cracks himself up, saying 'Oh Mommy, I was so silly! I made a mistake and hitted that tree!' This kid knows how to laugh, even at himself. I love that.

He can compartmentalize.
He chooses to adhere to the ideas that thumb-sucking is only for when in bed and trying to fall asleep, that stickers on hands for good behavior are only for school hours (they get ripped off as we leave the playground heading for the car/bike), that he never wears 'regular clothes' for bed- or nap-times, only 'sleeping clothes'. These aren't rules we've set out, but ones he's decided to abide by. He regulates and manages himself. I love that.

He is sweet.
He sobs when either he leaves his friends' houses or they leave ours. 'But Mommy, I want him to stay forever because I like him so much. It makes me very sad when my friends have to go away.' He tells Daddy 'I know you have to go to work to get us money, but we don't need a lot of money, so come home really quick, ok? Does that sound like a good deal?' When I pick him up from school, I can see his little head poking up above the crowd, searching to find me. He bursts into a grin as wide as the all outdoors and runs flat-out to hug me. Today, when talking about him doing full days of school later (rather than coming home before lunch) he said 'Some of my friends stay over at school, but I don't want to. I just want to stay with you.' When we're out walking and he finds a stick, he'll carry it for a while, then drop it and say 'I don't need it anymore, so I'll just leave it here for the next person.' He thinks a lot about other people. I love that.

He loves to learn.
He is already mentally fluent in two languages, and in another month or so, will be verbally fluent as well. He reads out both the letters and numbers of license plates when we're out. He reads out the letters on the subtitles on TV. We watch Animal Planet together during lunch every day and talk about how the animal kingdom works. He can count to 100 by tens. (?!) He tries to spell out words with his foam letters in the bath....he fails miserably, but loves to act as if he's got them perfect. He can spend an hour on the computer playing various games that I have no idea how he figured out how to do. He likes to sit and have intellectual conversations, discussing (for example) how steam comes from water and smoke comes from fire, and the general properties of each. He wants to know the 'why' and 'how' of every story we read to him, and he likes to read them back to us and explain them. He likes to tell me all the stories the teacher reads to them at school .... which are in Dutch, naturally, and he translates and summarizes them to us in English. (which can be really funny, like when he says they learned about the Bible and Thomas the Train isn't in the Bible, only people, but the people in the Bible don't do anything, they just sit and do nothing) He is inquisitive about everything and loves to learn whatever he can. I love that.

So for all the headaches and heartaches and hair-pulling moments Little Cub gives us, he's really an amazingly wonderful little boy. He's spirited and loving and challenging and kind and intelligent and compassionate and strong-willed and funny and thoughtful and entertaining.

And he's ours.

I love that.