He’s such a nice kid.
And smart too. But maybe I am biased since I am his mother.
But the other night, Declan was here at the office with us while we were working late. He happily played in his dad’s cube while we did a video shoot for one of our web sites in another section of the office. We had “Cars” playing (which, by the way, I think we have finally found a movie he actually likes and is not scared or freaked out by! Halleluhah!) …and he watched the movie while drawing on Post-It notes and pasting them all over Daddy’s cube.
We asked him to stay there, and if he needed anything, to ask Mr. Eric for help, since Eric was also working late and in the next cube. At one point, Declan quietly came and asked up where Mr. Eric’s cube was because he wanted to ask him for help. He then proceeded back to Eric’s office and promptly asked Eric to help him go potty. This still makes me chuckle, seeing as Eric is a 45 year old man with no children, so I can imagine the look of horrification on his face. When he agreed to helping Declan, I am sure he meant, “I’ll make sure he doesn’t set fire to anything” and not “I will take him to the bathroom, help him get undressed and help him shoot pee at the toilet bowl.” But Declan was just trying so diligently to follow what we asked him to do.. it melted my heart.
And seeing as he was trying so hard – even though I normally don’t like to reward with food – I promised him a piece of candy from his Halloween stash when we got home. He excitedly talked about that the entire drive back to our house. 25 minutes worth. But here is the thing – guess what my kid says in the middle of his candy jubilee? That *I* can have some his candy too when we get home. I was so touched by his generosity.
But I reminded him that I am diabetic, so I really couldn’t have any candy that night. That launched him into a million questions about diabetes and I pretty much explained it to him as I would anybody. That when I eat candy, it puts more sugar in my blood. That bad things happen to other parts of my body when I have too much sugar in my blood. That sometimes I go too high and sometimes I go too low. And so on and so on. He took it all in very solemnly. And then went back to jibberjabbing about getting some candy.
But he was listening, that kid. When we got home, what was the very first thing he said to me? Not that he wanted his candy. He put his little hands up on the counter and peeked around for my glucose meter, and said, “Mama… check your blood sugar now to see if you can have a piece of candy with me.”
I so love that kid.