Love Stories

Just have to write these down. It reassures me that in the usual wrestling, throwing, yelling, tossing, teasing, hitting and fussing, there are soft little hearts in there somewhere...

I was hustling Henry out the door yesterday because we were late to get Calvin. I was chanting, "We've gotta go, go, go, pick up our baby bro..." over and over again in a little cadence to keep Henry moving. He stopped in his tracks and said, "Calvin is not the baby bro. He is the big bro!" So I changed the chant to get him moving again. He started walking, but said, "Charlie is the baby bro...And I'm the mean-sized one." I'm not sure if he was just slurring the word "medium" (he does that a lot with words) or if he really thinks we've been calling things mean-size, including him. Either way, it's really cute and a little sad. (And it's not really the main point of this story...)

Henry got to go to work with David last week. It was take your child to work day and I had joked with David about taking the boys to work but he assured me it was for school-aged children only. Much to his credit, he called a little while after I dropped him off and said, "Do you want to bring Henry over? I didn't know, but it's all ages of kids. So I can have Henry with me this morning. That way you can have an hour or two to work on your paper." OK, awesome husband. (That's a love story in itself, right there, don't you think?)

Anyway, Calvin was at school so Henry got special one-on-one time with Dad. The office had put together little goodie bags and balloons and color sheets and all kinds of things for the kids who visited. David said that every time someone handed Henry something, he said, "Can I have one for my brother, too? He's at school and couldn't come with us." He brought home two of everything, so Cal wouldn't be left out. That is not something your average mean-sized person would do.

***

Calvin made a little May basket at school out of paper plates and ribbon, and they popped popcorn to put in it so it looks like it is filled with blossoms ("Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree"). He was telling me all about it the day they made it and then was excited to show it to me when he brought it home. This morning while we were driving to school, he said, "I was thinking that we should give our noisy loud neighbors* the May basket that I made."

I smiled at him because he called them the noisy loud neighbors and also because it was cute he was thinking of giving a school craft to them - three porsche-driving bachelors who have rocking parties every weekend. (Cal climbs up on his cozy coupe all the time and talks to them over the fence, Home Improvement style, while they're grilling. I always hope that he isn't actually high enough to see the pin-up girls they have in frames all around their back patio.)

So I was smiling, just thinking of Cal knocking on their door to give them this little preschool craft, when he added, "I just don't think they get nice things like that very often." I think he's probably right.