A Picture

Oh, this boy.

Nearly three and a half.

 He's so full of life.

And he's also so full of something else...

 He's reading, he's coming up with one-liners that are truly witty and funny.

And he's also doing something else.

His heart is forming.

Beneath all the endless energy, the jumping, and wiggling, the silliness and superheroes,

 something is happening.

He has always been very loving and compassionate yet he is showing a deeper sense of what

is means to be good.

An absorption of the things we have tried to teach him.

Autonomous gestures of forgiveness, contrition, love, gratitude, and respect.

And we get a front row seat to the show. 

  It is common place now that when he does something he shouldn't have

he will return, sometimes hours later much after the incident has been forgotten, and truly apologize. 

 You can see the emotion written on his face.

It washes away with the ease of a three year old's life when encountered with a simple hug.

Gets me every time. 

Today we were walking into a Chinese restaurant.

Joey was running behind me, apparently not watching where he was going, I opened the door to go in and hit him right in the face with the door.

Hard. Enough to make him fall to the floor. 

The noise the door made when it hit his face was enough to make me afraid that I had broken his teeth once I realized he was what I hit with the door.

As I picked him up, apologizing profusely, he looked up still crying with his eyes still pouring out tears, let his eyes meet mine and said,

 "I forgive you."

Every night at bedtime we pray.

We each talk about what we are grateful for.

For a long time most of what Joey was grateful for had to do with food. Quite a bit of sweetness scattered in but mostly things somehow having to do with food.  :o)

About a month ago Joey said

"I am thank you for love ... and I am grateful for ... you."

Every night since, I say what I am grateful for in my day.  It is always something different.

Joey always says he is grateful for me.

I prompt him to add something else.

Last night he was thankful for his Daddy playing Batman with him on the floor before bed.

Tonight while I listened silently,

"I am grateful for (he has stopped saying 'thank you for') you ... and I am grateful for Gracie .. she is so silly sometimes."

And I could hear the smile on his face and he love in his voice.

I said,

"I am grateful for Grace too and I think she loves you the mostest mostest."

He said, "Yeah"

And I could hear his smile grow bigger.