Captain Consideration

It's a new era, alright. Daniel was never particularly inconsiderate towards us, but he has been party to the "I'm a toddler - the world revolves around me" syndrome.

Out of the blue, he has turned into Captain Consideration.

When we sneeze, instead of saying "bless you", he urgently asks if we are ok: "Mommy! You ok?!"

He constantly invites us to play with him. It's like something clicked in his brain that we don't always have to be with him, and he needs to invite us. And let me tell you - it's absolutely irresistable when he interrupts chores with those big brown eyes... "Mommy, you want to play too? Ok! Hold me hand..." and he drags me off to his room to play.

When we are at the dinner table, if he is done before us and goes to play, he approaches the table every three minutes and very politely asks each of us: "Mommy, you all done? You want to play cars too? Daddy, you all done? You want to play?"

When he plays with a toy, he insists on giving one to us as well. He is intent on making sure we have as much or more in our hands as he has in his. If we set it down - he runs over and "re-gifts" it to us: "Mommy, here. This mommy's toy... and this Daniel's toy." He even gives us Zona from time to time - and she's worth the world to him.

He congratulates us constantly - I'm sure it's because we praise his every effort. If we are helping him spell letters, he'll turn to us beaming: "Mommy! You DID it! Yay!" The most recent episode of this happened at the Wal-Mart Customer Service Counter. He was spelling "Customer Service" and I was repeating each letter. After a very loud congratulations from him to me, a few of the people in line even turned, laughing, and applauded my spelling efforts. Nice.

He made a huge mess in the bathtub the other night (which he had to help clean up). But the next morning he ran to the tub, saw it was clean, and turned to me: "Mommy! You clean it! Good job!" (My favorite: Sometimes he'll walk in on us using the toilet, and no doubt as a reflection of our potty training efforts with him, he'll "high-five" us and congratulate us on the effort. Hilarious.)

And maybe the sweetest development has been his sympathetic tendencies. Last night I banged my knee in the garage and it kind of knocked the wind out of me. I was bent over, trying not to a) cuss or b) cry... and Daniel ran up to me: "Mommy! You ok?! Mommy! What happen?!" I told him I got an ouchie, and he immediately dropped to his knees, stood up and said "My got ouchie too!"

Ready for the kicker? He grabbed my hand, led me inside and said, "We got ouchie together."

Melt me.