That's My Boy!

“What's that Mommy,” our inquisitive two year old asked. His voice was awed.

“That's a butterfly. God made the butterfly. Pretty butterfly. Thank you God for making the pretty the butterfly.”

We were heavy into indoctrinating our children with our beliefs before the outside world did with theirs, do you see.

He was awed and followed it around. He kept saying, “Bubbafie! Pwetty bubbafie!” Come on guys, he was just two, after all.

He certainly was cute, and smart, and all that bragging stuff mommies do.

But he had another side to him I discovered a few weeks later, that was, well it was rather worrisome.

We were at the grocery store and I picked up a large tub of peanut butter, and placed it in the cart. He watched, elated. He loved peanut butter. And he loved orange juice.

He began to clap his little hands with glee.

“Peaabubba! Peaabubba!” He shouted.

Then he stopped.

His eyelids dropped to halfway cover his eyes. He glanced sideways at me, and smirked.

“Peaabubba, PEABBUBAFIE!” He giggled. He laughed. He chortled all the way home. He was two.

I told Bob what had happened. Bob thought it was pretty clever. He somehow didn't see it as a harbinger of things that were lurking in the future.

***

Fast forward to grade school.

“Mom! Mom! The principal named me captain of the whole school Safety Patrol. And, I get to wear this cool Captain badge and everything.”

“Wow! That's great, Son.” I added to show him how impressed I was, “Do the other Safety Patrol kids have to salute you in the mornings, before you march out to the school crossings?”

“Nah!,” he said, ever so humbly, “they just have to bow down and throw quarters.”

***                                                                          

Today.

Well, he writes books, too.

“Mom,” I know this is not a competition, but ...,” can't you just hear the long pause?

“I'm pretty sure that I have two more ISBNs than you.”

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https://www.thervhodge.com/meet-the-author