I love watching my son play

There is nothing better than hiding somewhere and watching my son play and communicate whether it be by himself, or with a friend. He almost becomes a different person. I think with me there is the "authority figure" in me that can intimidate him a bit and keeps him from taking complete control of a situation.

When he has his friend over (next door neighbor) he is on a level playing field. I sat out in my tool shed today and watched him interact for about 20 minutes. It was awesome and funny.

Caiden was trying to act like he was "the man" for the most part. He kept reminding his friend of what his daddy (me) would allow them to do and what they could not do. They sat on the endge of the deck and talked for a bit, making funny fart noises with their mouths, etc. Caiden then began kicking the lattuce wood under the deck (that my honeysuckle grows on) with the back of his foot. His friend (James) then asked if his daddy allows him to hit the wood with his foot and Caiden replied "my daddy says I can do whatever I want".

Looks like I need to be more clear on "anything he wants"; I mean that more as a positive reinforcement more than anything (you know the whole "you can do anything if you put your mind to it" thing?) I got a chuckle out of his statement.

Anyway, as he kept kicking harder and harder, I would have normally gone outside and asked him to stop, but I wanted to see how long he would keep it up. Finally a piece of the lattuce came loose and his friend pointed it out. Just then Caiden almost froze in fear, then jumped off the deck to see what he was talking about. James pointed out the piece of wood that fell off (just a small 6" piece in the corner) and Caiden picked it up and I could tell he was a bit nervous. They both sat there for about 5 minutes trying to figure out how they were going to re-attach the piece. Finally, they decided to just hide the piece behind the lattuce, under the deck and went inside the house.

I'm going to hang onto that 6" piece of wood to remind myself of how precious my son is. Every time I look at my lattuce and see that missing piece down by the corner (which no one else will ever notice) I'm going to smile at the character my son gave my deck, and the little character he is turning out to be.

I love my son dearly.