The Way of a Child

My husband and I were talking about someday renting a cabin in the woods for a week in the summer and spend that time working on our various writing projects. My children overheard and asked if they could come. I said yes they would come, and they could go have adventures in the woods when Daddy and I were writing. My four-year-old started crying, "I don't want you to leave me in the woods." I assured him he could come in the cabin any time. He said, "No, the woods are scary." After a thoughtful silence he asked, "Are there hyenas in the woods?" My helpful daughter said, "No, there aren't any hyenas, but we will probably get chased by bears." Tears again broke forth, until I told him that it would probably be at least two summers before we could do it and he would be six. The tears immediately stopped and he looked at me, "Oh, okay, I will be able to beat the bears up when I am six." And he happily ran away to go play. Such is the way of the four-year-old.


The younger species in our home, the two-year-old has become increasingly friendly, not just with strange men sitting on park benches. Oh, no, why stop there? He has decided to spread his friendliness to cars. Yes, cars. He waves to them as we drive or walk. When Daddy gets home he greets Daddy and proceeds to aks him about his car, did he drive it? Is it good? When we get out of our Suburban he refuses to come in the house until he has walked around to the front grill, stroked it lovingly and said something to the effect of, "hiun fren vana un oon." Of course, all I can think of is, "ew, bugs!"
The other day we went on a two hour walk to feed ducks and meander. We stopped to look at bouncy little ball thingy's under oak trees(my husband says they are worm eggs, which I was glad to not think at the time). The kids were running their hands over them to see them bounce and just watching them. The older kids that is. My little one saw nothing interesting in bouncing little balls, but he did see a friendly car and so wandered over to it and smiled and began to carry on a rather one-sided conversation. His little hands were behind his back as he prattled away. He seemed content with his conversation and told the car goodbye with a most affectionate air. And with that we will leave the glimpse of the way of the two-year-old a delightful world where talking to cars is as normal as dragging your favorite blanket around, so as to always be prepared for a nap.