Young at Heart

Eric is a little kid in a man's body. It's a known fact.

Several weeks ago we were at some friends' house, and they have twin four-year-old boys. I said something about Eric being a little boy like them, and one of the twins said, "You're not a little boy, you're a man!" To which Eric replied, "I'm a little boy inside. That is, there's a little boy inside of me. That is, I ate a little boy, and now he's inside of me."

On Halloween Eric invited ourselves over to that same family's house for their Halloween party. We had heard about the party from some friends, and then Eric decided he wanted to go too. When we got there we realized that the people who were there, you know, HAD CHILDREN! I thoroughly enjoyed watching Eric begin leading the children in various games. As I sat and chatted with other grown-ups in the living room, Eric came and hid behind the couch telling us not to tell the kids where he was. Gradually children started milling around keeping their eyes peeled for Eric and occasionally asking us if we knew where he was. We lied, and they kept looking. Eventually all the kids found Eric and the next round of Sardines began. I'm not sure what other games Eric played with the kids, but I could tell they all thought he was the cat's meow (or the dog's bark or the duck's quack or something).

On Guy Fawke's Day, we were at the home of the one of the children in attendance at the Halloween Party. I was wonderfully happy when she came up and asked Eric if he would play games with the kids. When he answered that he would, she ran around the yard trying to gather children shouting, "Everyone, come on! Eric's gonna play games with us! It's gonna be a lot of fun!"

Incidentally, Eric didn't end up playing games with the kids that night, and that was too bad. But I was just so happy for this little girl to be so eager for Eric to play games with them.

One of these days he's going to be the fun dad and I'm going to be the ogre mom. I can already see it happening. I'm sure it will be fun!