Kyle is a toddler.\u00a0 More specifically, Kyle is a toddler who toddles where he pleases with little or no regard to external instructions or expectations.\u00a0 Kyle is the most recent arrival of his father\u2019s progeny, in fact, he is the youngest of the youngest of the clan of his grandfather. Someday Kyle will be his own man, but today he is very much his own toddling young male.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve met Kyle before.\u00a0 He\u2019s my grandnephew, the son of my brother\u2019s son.\u00a0 I\u2019ve not, however, seen him often nor had much interaction with him as he has of recent times been an infant distant to me by some three hundred miles.<\/p>\n
This past Thanksgiving weekend Lori and I traveled to Arkansas to share the celebration with my brother, Gary, and his family.\u00a0 Gary\u2019s three children, adult children, were there with their own offspring and it was a good time.\u00a0 We ate well.\u00a0 We enjoyed beautiful weather and we did what families do.<\/p>\n
Sometime amidst the socializing and reminiscing Kyle, who had been playing with the Lego airplane his brother had built, misplaced the toy man that belonged in the pilot\u2019s seat.\u00a0 I had earlier had some conversation with Kyle regarding the aircraft.\u00a0 Kyle is a toddler.\u00a0 He speaks, but much of his speech is unintelligible, at least on the receiving end.\u00a0 I suspect that an equal percentage of my articulation was not decipherable on the receiving end.\u00a0 Nonetheless we talked.<\/p>\n
I assisted Kyle in his search for the missing pilot.\u00a0 We eventually located the errant miniature humanoid.\u00a0 The toy consisted of multiple parts including a detachable head and removable helmet.\u00a0 Kyle instinctively removed the little man\u2019s helmet.\u00a0 Toddlers enjoy taking things apart and putting things together.\u00a0 They are generally much more accomplished at taking things apart.<\/p>\n
I expressed mock concern for the missing helmet.\u00a0 After I explained, energetically, how much and why the pilot needed his helmet, Kyle giggled gleefully and handed me the helmet.\u00a0 I placed the helmet on the little man\u2019s head and solemnly returned the toy to the toddler.\u00a0 Kyle received the toy and immediately removed the helmet.\u00a0 I expressed great concern with much animation until he returned the two pieces to me so that I might reunite the disjoined elements.\u00a0 I handed the completed pilot back to Kyle and we reiterated the sequence.\u00a0 Again and again and again we reiterated and with each new iteration he would laugh as if what we\u2019d done was a hilarious joke he\u2019d never before seen.\u00a0 I had forgotten that precocious toddlers seem to be almost completely impervious to the drudgery of repetition.<\/p>\n
A few times during the day, or evening, Kyle climbed up onto my lap.\u00a0 His Aunt Rhonda commented wryly that he\u2019d never done that for her and then to demonstrate she spoke to him in that way that loving aunts speak.\u00a0 She was correct.\u00a0 His filter permitted him to apparently not even hear her voice.<\/p>\n
The following day we, several adults, were again sitting around the dining room table doing the things that normally geographically dispersed related adults do when Kyle brought to my side another of the miniature Lego people.\u00a0 This one wasn\u2019t wearing a helmet. \u00a0As we were discussing the little fellow Kyle was holding in one hand he reached up with the thumb and index finger of his other hand and promptly pulled the head from its body.\u00a0 Of course, I expressed shock and deep concern.\u00a0 I explained in many words how the little man couldn\u2019t hear, speak, eat, or smell without his head.\u00a0 After some hesitation Kyle seemed to be convinced and held out to me the two parts to be rejoined.\u00a0 When I passed it back to him his eyes began to sparkle, he giggled a mischievous little laugh and looking right into my eyes again pulled the head from its little plastic body.<\/p>\n
Toddlers really can maintain interest in almost endless repetitions of the same script.\u00a0 I wonder how different the world might be if adults didn\u2019t lose that ability.<\/p>\n
Sometime during the afternoon Lori and I had a short discussion regarding whether she\u2019d left the hotel key in the car or at the hotel.\u00a0 We had only one.\u00a0 I volunteered to go out to the car, parked some fifty feet from the house, and do what I could do to put her mind at ease.\u00a0 Kyle followed me to the door.\u00a0 I held the door open and we exchanged verbal observations and intents which were likely not effectively comprehended by either listener.\u00a0 About halfway to the car through the autumn leaves, Kyle reached up, he\u2019s quite a bit shorter than I, and took my left hand.\u00a0 When I opened the front passenger door Kyle climbed across the front seat and into a place on the rear seat behind the driver\u2019s position.\u00a0 I located the hotel key on the console, closed the passenger door, and circled the car to get into the driver\u2019s seat.<\/p>\n
We chatted and exchanged pleasantries as I executed a short three minute route about the property.\u00a0 When I had parked again, we exited the vehicle, I from the driver\u2019s side; he from the passenger\u2019s door.\u00a0 He took my hand again and we walked back toward the house.<\/p>\n
As we approached the house Kyle\u2019s mother, Jennifer, greeted us from the porch.\u00a0 I imagined she must have been concerned about where I was taking her youngest child without a proper child seat.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think you know how special this is,\u201d she said.\u00a0 \u201cHe doesn\u2019t come to anyone.\u201d<\/p>\n
Actually, I did, although I was not all that familiar with all the particulars.\u00a0 There may be a couple or more explanations of why Kyle would attach himself to me.\u00a0 It\u2019s my belief that dogs and small children have an ability to see something within a person that often escapes more mature humans.\u00a0 Young children begin to lose their powers of discernment in direct proportion to the increase of their verbal skills.\u00a0 Dogs only lose theirs as a result of intensive training.<\/p>\n
Sometimes I need the vote of confidence.\u00a0 My life, my history, what is buried deep inside me often causes me to question the balance of good and evil within me, to doubt the quality of my character.\u00a0 Sometimes the demons still torment me.\u00a0 I think I\u2019m one of the good guys, but I know I have not always been so.\u00a0 I\u2019ll take the vote.<\/p>\n
Then again, it could have been just the time and place that Kyle had chosen to become more social.\u00a0 It\u2019s possible that I was just in the right place at the right time.\u00a0 I did witness at least once his climbing up onto his grandmother\u2019s lap that weekend.\u00a0 The kid is brilliant and he could have easily sized up the available targets and accurately evaluated whom he could effectively manipulate to his purposes and entertainment.<\/p>\n
Naw, I\u2019m going with the powers of discernment.<\/p>\n
Gifts don\u2019t always wait for Christmas or a birthday.\u00a0 They\u2019re not always wrapped with bright paper and ribbons or in sharp cornered boxes.\u00a0 Now and then a precious gift will come from an unexpected source.\u00a0 Sometimes it\u2019s soft and warm.\u00a0 That little boy will not remember Thanksgiving weekend or how he was his own toddler before he became his own man, but I\u2019ll remember, and I\u2019ll treasure in my mind how special it is to walk through the autumn leaves and to have someone reach up unexpectedly and clutch my hand.<\/p>\n
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Kyle is a toddler.\u00a0 More specifically, Kyle is a toddler who toddles where he pleases with little or no regard to external instructions or expectations.\u00a0 Kyle is the most recent arrival of his father\u2019s progeny, in fact, he is the …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal-and-family"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/willowinthewind.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/willowinthewind.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/willowinthewind.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willowinthewind.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willowinthewind.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=378"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/willowinthewind.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":385,"href":"https:\/\/willowinthewind.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378\/revisions\/385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/willowinthewind.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willowinthewind.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willowinthewind.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}