Last month, Perfect Man and I visited my brother, his wife, and their three boys: Cutie #1, Cutie #2, and Cutie #3. The three Cuties are adorable--smart, funny, and extremely entertainable. (Aunt Pillowhead is a big hit with the seven-and-under crowd.)
And while we were there, this thing happened with Cutie #2 that I haven't been able to stop thinking about. Cutie #2 is four, and his six-year-old brother, Cutie #1, was showing me his class picture from kindergarten and "introducing" me to all of his friends. Cutie #2 didn't have a class picture, but he goes to pre-school and has classmates he wanted me to "meet" as well, so he ran off and then came back with a wooden alphabet puzzle. He took all the letters that started the name of someone in his class out of the puzzle and arranged them in a group on the floor to "introduce" me to everyone. Letter by letter, he'd pick them up and say, "This is Amelia," or Ann, Adam, Brandon, Cory, etc. I was just mesmerized with his thought process--he was so consumed with the details of his solution, and so careful to get everyone right. When he got to K, he told me it was Kevin, who is a bully who spits on him sometimes. I took the K from him and said to it, very earnestly, "Kevin, you may not spit on my sweet nephew. Promise me you will never do that again." Cutie #2's eyes lit up and he said, "He says he will still spit on me sometimes!" so I said, "Well, I'm sorry, but that won't do." And I took Cutie #2's hand, and we walked outside with the K, and we put it in a corner of the garden. And, firmly but not unkindly, I said to the K, "Kevin, you will just have to sit out here by yourself until you can promise to be civil and respectful to my darling nephew." Cutie #2 was in hysterics by then, jumping up and down and laughing and saying, "I don't think he's paying attention to you!" And I said, "Well, let's just give him some time to think about his actions and be by himself." We went back inside and I told Cutie #2 that he could decide when he wanted to bring Kevin back in the house--if he wanted to make him stay out there all night, he could. If he wanted to try to go talk some sense into him in an hour or so, he could do that, too. It was up to him. Cutie #2 said he was going to make Kevin sit out there in the freezing night all night long to teach him a lesson. I told him that was fine with me.
After dinner, Cutie #2 suddenly announced that he had to go outside and bring Kevin back in before it got too cold, that he had been out there long enough. He went and got the K and then carefully put it back in the puzzle with all the other letters, and then he put the puzzle away. I read him and his cute brothers a story, and they all went to bed.
So what I'm wondering is: why can't we all be as pure and kind and ingenious as four-year-olds?
2 comments:
What a great story, Aunt Pillowhead!
#2 can be a real challenge, I might add, because he is not overwhelmingly impressed with parental authority. I often have to remind myself, "another time-out is probably not going to make him see the merits of the No Throwing Things ban."
Occasionally I remember watching you over the years as you empathized with some recalcitrant child. And now today, I invariably make better progress with #2 when I ask myself, "how would Aunt Pillowhead handle this?"
Sweet Paduan,
I am deeply touched by this homage and honored that you're using me as an example when times get tough. But you should ask Brilliant & Kind how he felt when I "empathized" with Hilarious & Gifted after he'd committed some grievous offense against his older brother--like the permission-less playing with and subsequent breaking of his Millenium Falcon, for example. In a fit of tearful outrage, when not enough progress in his little brother's remorse department had been made, he once suggested that I stop using words and just break a few of H&G's own toys to teach him a lesson he'd remember.
Maybe have I just a soft spot for the rebellious and independent #2s of the world.
Post a Comment