He Does That....

We were at a busy playground this afternoon, the kids and I. I always keep a hawk-eye on LM at these places because the boy loves talking to strangers-- and this particular crowd was pretty ghetto. But within the span of about 5 seconds I lost sight of him. He does that...wanders off. (I estimate that at least 10 years have been taken off my life span due to moments like these.) But I finally spotted him running toward the covered picnic area. He was dodging behind beams ala James Bond before breaking out into an army crawl on the concrete ground under the tables. What the...? When I finally caught up to him, he was already speaking to a young woman with her daughter and grandmother. He was apologizing for something.

"He's apologizing for being mean to my daughter," the young woman explains.

"What did you do, LM?" I ask, not having seen whatever encounter was being discussed.

"Well, I accidentally stepped on her finger when she fell down," he explains. The mother of the little girl then adds, "I believe he growled at her afterward-- so she started to cry and ran over here." Yep-- he does that!

"Ohhhhh," I say, not knowing what else to do. After all, it looked like LM had already taken care of the problem on his own. But LM wasn't through. He addressed the child's mother again.

"Yeah, I almost didn't come over here. I was scared you'd kill me. But then I thought, 'hey, it's the right thing to do!' and so I snuck over to apologize."

"Well, that was very brave of you!" exclaims the grandmother.

"Yeah! Just look at how strong I am!" LM proceeds to roll up his sleeve and display his impressive bulk. "Check out these muscles!" he invites. A chorus of ohhhhhs and ahhhhhs follow. The little girl is smiling now, too. "Hey, let me make it up to you," LM adds. He opens up the little black backpack that is his constant companion on outings and takes out his collection of prized possessions. "Let me show you my toys-- you can play with them for a while!" A very generous offer. But oh my, look at the time! I convince LM to put his toys back so that we can go and collect his sister who is playing the "I don't know these people" act.

We leave the trio to their KFC lunch, all of them smiling. I tell LM how proud I am that he took the initiative to go and apologize to the girl, but his mind is already on to the next thing. But my mind isn't, and I find myself smiling too. He does that...makes me smile.