Wisdom of a 4 Year Old - On Finding Diversity

I tell people that the Gremlin deliberately embarrasses us because, well, he does. The Mother of the Gremlin took him to one of our favorite sandwich shops the other day, and the Gremlin, who had been whining all day, saw the store and took off - almost as if he was on a mission.

We should have been more aware, but we let him into the store and stepped in line to order. Suddenly, we hear the Gremlin's voice and turn to see him talking with a black man waiting for his food.

"'Scuse me." The man looked down and the Mother of the Gremlin made this small moan in the back of her throat, and then looked away, as if that would make the Gremlin stop.

"Where are all the black people in Seattle?" The man's eyes grew wide and then started looking around the store, probably to see if he was being Punk'd.

"I'm sorry, what?" The Gremlin pressed on.

"I have been looking and I cannot find any! There were LOTS in Chicago!" The man, thankfully, had a sense of humor and fired back.

"I don't know. Would you like to come back to my house? There are a lot there..." The Gremlin's eyes lit up. He ran over and plucked the backpack out of the MOTG's hands and walked back over.

"Okay, I'm ready!"

Definitely Evil Genius. Or Brilliant Klepto.

It's amazing what determined children can do, even when you are paying attention to them. Not that I fault him for this one, but the other day the Gremlin was being denied ice cream (I know, I'm an horrible father for not giving ice cream to my 11 month old). Another girl at the park had a stick of frozen deliciousness, and decided that it would be entertaining - as the Mother of the Gremlin and I were repeatedly telling him he couldn't have any - to put the ice cream in his face and pull it back just out of his reach. Her mother saw her doing this and even old her that she shouldn't do that, but the girl did it again and again.

As the girl turned to make sure her mother was watching her defiance, the Gremlin struck yet again with cut-bottle (cutthroat) accuracy. He grabbed her hand with one of his, and the ice cream with his other, pulling it from the stick and putting it in his mouth. He bit off, and swallowed over half the cone. While the girl cried, her mother, the MOTG, and I laughed as we attempted to clean the remains of the ice cream from the Gremlin's clothes (a futile effort in the end).

It seems he's also not afraid to work in front of a crowd. While we were at the park the other day, the darling little sprite was edging toward a family picnicking at one of the tables nearby. Sadly, we were too late to catch him from climbing under the table, but we saw he was moving straight through to the other side, and met him there. One of the most bizarre things happened, there, though. He emerged with a ham and turkey on white. Being able to see him, where he was going, and everything in front of him, it was astounding that he was able to acquire a sandwich from the picnicking family without them knowing, and without us seeing.

Once he got the basic skills down, there was nothing standing in the way of him using this on a larger scale. The MOTG found out yesterday while picking him up that the day care has a snack time. On special occasions the 'Child Care Specialists' were tasked with handing out treats - 3 small pieces of graham cracker to each child. And it seems that even though each 'Specialist' only has two infants to deal with, the apple of my eye managed to steal all the graham crackers that the other children were not holding, and put them in his bowl. There was a rash of cries that broke out, and only after realizing that my little darling was the only one not crying did they investigate and realize he had taken the rest of the graham crackers away from all the other children.

It was especially encouraging to hear the 'Child Care Specialist' - being as seasoned as they are to work in a very prestigious university/hospital's day care - explain how the 11 month old child threw such a fit (apparently he has also learned to pinch and bite, as well as cry), that they decided to let him keep the graham crackers he conquered. Yeah, that's a great lesson for him to learn.