Thursday, December 21, 2006

This little light of mine.

Izzy is big into playing pretend right now, and he'll assign the characters. Lately, he's been Santa and Chris or I have been "Honey."

That's what we were playing this afternoon while I was folding laundry. He picked up one of Chris's black shirts and said, "Honey, would you button this for me?" He's getting pretty good with bigger buttons, but not so good on the small ones, especially with six inches of sleeve covering his fingers.

Once he was properly attired, he asked, in his impossibly cute "deep" Santa voice, "So, little girl, what do you want for Christmas?" I told him cheese. He told me he had to go look in his tent and he went over to where I'd laid the blanket over a chair while I was changing the sheets.

He rummaged around, then came back with his empty hands outstretched and said, "Here you go, little girl! Merry Christmas!" I thought this was the perfect time for a little lesson on manners, so I excitedly exclaimed, "Cheese! Oh, thank you Santa! This is exactly what I wanted! You just made me so happy!"

He is delighted at my reaction and he replies, "No, thank YOU!" He's such a doll sometimes. I pretend to be teaching him manners, but really, we're learning from him all the time.

Yesterday, as we turned the corner coming home from story time at the library, I saw the kids' PapPaw Mike pulling into our driveway. As I was getting Sophie in the house, Mike gave Izzy a huge bushel basket of fruit to carry in. He was stumbling in the house, mostly dragging it, and hollered, "I need a hand here!"

I helped him carry it on into the dining room, and I immediately washed up some grapes for the two of them. They're happily munching on the grapes while Mike and I are standing there talking, and Izzy beamed his sunny smile up at him and says, "Thank you so much for the fruit, PapPaw!" He can be a handful, and generally is, but he does have pretty good manners for a three-year old.

As a matter of fact, that same day my sister, whom Izzy calls Mimi, got here while Mike was still here. Izzy very excitedly went over and put his hand on Mike's arm, and said to Micki, "Mimi, I'd like you to meet my friend, PapPaw." How cute is that?? He might drive me nuts (a lot), but he sure is a sweetie, and he brightens my life immeasurably.

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