A Good Egg

Christmas is coming and the Lennon is excited. He remembers last year, but this year is still a brand new experience for him. He carefully explains everything to me as if he thinks it is also a brand new one for me too.

And it is! Because I am seeing it through his eyes, and through the eyes of my child, seeing it through his child’s eyes. It doubles the wonder for me.

Looking at the world from his point of view is exciting and sweet and sometimes very difficult.

Yesterday he must have chewed one bite of scrambled eggs for nearly two hours! I told him he could spit them out, but that if he did there would be no candy. That was in the beginning. I would rue those words later on. He chewed and chewed. Could he go play on the computer? I told him not until his mouth was empty. Could he go lie down? I said not with eggs in your mouth. He drank some juice to help wash them down to no avail. He ate a bite of toast to help make them go down and that only added to the ordeal.

I finally asked him why he couldn’t swallow them (I remember one time when I discovered five raisons in his mouth hours and hours after I had given them to him and he loves raisons!) We discussed this problem at great length without any real solution. He finally told me he had swallowed some of the eggs and now the bite in his mouth was only medium sized.

Eventually I said, “Please just go spit the eggs out.”

His answer? “I am not spitting them out and I am not swallowing them.”

He wasn’t trying to be difficult, at least not any more and I was wishing I had never put that bite of eggs on his plate. He tried another drink of juice and I heard this exultant little voice from the kitchen, “Gramma! I have something to tell you! The eggs are gone!” He’d finally swallowed it!

We celebrated with two pieces of candy! He was not angry, or sulky, just glad those eggs were gone. And so was I! Who can think children are bad at this age?