Once again, the picture here has nothing to do with this post. I just love the picture. As you may be able to ascertain, bedtime is approaching. Sleepy clothes are on the floor just behind Kiernan, as is a container of wipes for changing diapers. Rather than pay attention to any of that, though, Kiernan has elected to take my boots for a spin. I don't know if it's the angle of this picture, or what, but his face looks so much older in this shot. Really gives me an idea of what he's going to look like as he matures.
Again, I'm not in any hurry for that.
This past summer we visited my parents in Virginia. During the visits to both sets--Kiernan's Nana & Pop, and his Pap-pap & Sandi--he experienced meals before which people ask the blessing. We do not do that in our household [sorry to break it to you, Mom], so he was a mite confused at first. This was not his first visit, nor his first experience with a meal preceeded by the blessing, but this summer was the first time he really took notice. Unfortunately, we had not prepared him for this eventuality. It had not occurred to either Wendy or myself that we should need to do so. So the first time someone asked the blessing before a meal, when everybody closed their eyes and my stepfather started to speak to God, Kiernan got this confused look on his face [yeah, you got me, I didn't have my eyes closed] and said, loudly, "Let's eat!"
In addition to seeming an entirely reasonable reaction to the situation, this was flat out hilarious to Wendy and me. Of course we couldn't show him that, as it would only egg him on, so we had to stifle our laughter and say, "Shhh!"
"Shhhh!", as it turns out, was a poor tool for keeping Kiernan quiet during the blessing. So we basically just said, "Okay, we're closing our eyes now!" before every other blessing, and for some reason this worked great. There he would sit, holding the hands of the people seated to his right and left, doing this very funny squinting thing while very obviously peeking at everyone around the table until they all opened their eyes. He thought this was a great game. It got us through the pre-meal blessings for the trip, so that was good, but I didn't give it any further thought once we left Virginia.
Until a couple weeks later when we were back home, all seated down to dinner, and Kiernan suddenly reached out for Wendy's hand, then my hand, then did his little squinty thing. Wendy and I looked at each other with a mixture of amusement and terror. What were we to do now? We had to decide immediately. So, on the fly, we just said what we were thankful for on the table, finishing with a hearty "Thanks!" This worked just fine for Kiernan.
A couple months later we had dinner guests--I think it was Kiernan's Gammy and Grance, along with his Nee-Nee--and Kiernan did it again. We were having some kind of pasta dish, and he was making liberal use of the parmesan cheese on the table. I mean, he was going to town on the stuff, putting huge heaping spoonfuls of it on his pasta. Midway through the meal he grabbed Gammy's hand, then Mommy's hand, and instructed the rest of us to follow his lead. We all grabbed hands and pretended to close our eyes. It was silent for a moment, then Kiernan burst out with, "Thanks for the cheese! And the pasta! And the cheeeeeeeese!"
We cracked up.
Fast forward a few months and Kiernan and I are at the table having lunch. It is after Easter, which means it is a new era for Kiernan. He has been given a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse dvd by his Nee-Nee, and now he is crazy about Mickey Mouse and all his friends. Basically life can now be divided into AMM (After Mickey Mouse) and BMM (Before Mickey Mouse, also known as The Dark Time). Barely a moment goes by during the day that he doesn't ask (translation: demand) I do Mickey's voice.
We're sitting at the table having lunch and Kiernan decides he wants all the Clubhouse friends to join us for lunch. Now, we don't have any of these characters as stuffed animals. He just wants them there. So he assigns Minnie the seat closest to him, the seat his mother usually occupies (Wendy is also cast as the voice talent for Minnie in our household), and asks me to move the chair as close to his chair as possible. Then he assigns Daisy the next chair. Donald is seated in the chair opposite him. Then Goofy. Then Mickey, where I'm sitting. A brief discussion of what everybody is eating follows.
Then he reaches out for my hand. "I want the friends to say blessing," he says. So we methodically go around the table, instructing Minnie to take Kiernan's hand, then Daisy's hand, and instructing Daisy to take Donald's hand, and so on. When all hands are held, Kiernan squints his eyes and says, "Thanks for the peanut butter. And the bread. And the plate. And the napkin. And the knife. And the jelly." The other characters then have to give their thanks--with me voicing them, of course [let me tell you, I do not envy the guy who does the voice for Donald Duck]--until everybody has been accounted for, and Kiernan proceeds with his lunch.
A little while later, as everybody is still happily chatting about lunch and our afternoon plans, Kiernan looks at me and says, "They're just pretend."
"What?" I say.
"They're not real. They're just pretend."
"Right," I respond, once more knocked out by the amazing creature that is my son.
Sadly, for my vocal chords, the fact that they are "just pretend" does not get me off the hook for doing their voices for the rest of the day. Oh well. It could be worse. He could be into the Teletubbies.
[The below picture is, again, unrelated. I just love his expression here. He has just sorted his magnetic alphabet into colors. I thought that was cool so I snapped a picture. This is the first expression he gives me. Why don't you guys come up with some captions?]
