Underestimation of the Little Ones

It's easy to underestimate the little people our children are becoming. We had twice over the last couple crazy days of Christmas where we did that to our little Matthew. On Friday night we were on our way home (way too late for little children) from my mom's house after a family gathering. We live only 6-7 minutes away from her house, so in an attempt to get both children to fall asleep on the way home, we took a more circuitous route. A few minutes into the drive, Matthew asks, "Where are we going?" I answer, "We're going home." He replies, "No, not going home." We got busted...he totally could tell that we weren't on the normal route home. At that point we gave up and headed straight for home, arriving with both children awake at 10:45 pm! Hopefully Matthew's sense of direction will remain that great when he's 16 and driving!!

The second story is an underestimation of Matthew's sensitivity. Last night we did a White Elephant exchange with David's family. Matthew was in on the activity. I was the first person to have to pick a gift - so obviously my gift would probably be stolen. Part way through the game we all commented that nobody had stolen a gift. So Barb, David's mom was the next one to go. She stole David's gift. Matthew started to get upset. He made comments like, "Daddy sad". He started kind of whimpering, but was obviously upset that Mama had stolen daddy's present. Well, next, Rebecca stole my present. I made some kind of sarcastic snicker that my present had been taken. That made Matthew really upset. He started tearing up and fully crying and said, "Mommy sad". He was really disturbed that people were stealing Mommy and Daddy's presents. Well, soon after that, Matthew had his turn. We told him he could pick a present from the middle or take someone else's present (mentioning that he could steal one of our presents back). Crying, he walks across the room. Someone asked, "Are you going to steal back mommy's or daddy's present." Sobbing, Matthew answered, "Mommy's". He brought the present back to me and asked, "Mommy happy now?" I was almost in tears because it was so sweet. At the end of the game after everyone had opened their gifts, we said that people could exchange what they had if it was a mutual switch. We all saw Matthew eyeballing the present that had once been David's. Mama was a good sport and asked if Matthew wanted to switch presents - and of course he did! He made sure to ask, "Daddy happy now?" What a sweet kid to protect both of his parents like that!!