Changeable Charmer

I don’t entirely understand it, but my three-year-old son Asher is like a hot woman at a bar. People just come up and give him free stuff.

Here he is with a free cake pop the woman at Starbucks gave him when our friend Lisa had already bought him a banana and chocolate milk.

I think it’s all the chat. People don’t expect a tiny little guy to come up and ask them how their day is going. But he does.

One time, I took him with me to Trader Joe’s. Don’t get me wrong–most of the time, when I take him to Trader Joe’s, I take him with his siblings. On those trips, he morphs into The Worst Child in the World®.

However, on this particular trip, I took Asher by himself. We walked around, I with my big cart and he with his child-sized one. He helpfully put about half of the groceries into his cart, periodically stopping to meet women.

He approached a woman who was looking at juice. “Hi,” he said cheerfully. “We’re at the grocery store. We got some chips, and some cereal…we got some burberries. Those are for breffast. And we got some salad. That’s for later.”

The woman looked kind of mystified but pleased. I’m not sure she knew what he was saying at all. She looked at me, saying, “He is so cute!”

“What a good helper!” another passerby crowed.

When Asher paused and offered to help a man stocking wine, several employees clustered around him, cooing. Someone brought him a lollipop. Then we went to check out. They tried to give him another lollipop, but I declined, and he had to settle for some stickers.

I beamed throughout the trip, feeling like I was with a celebrity. This was my cute son. Perhaps if I stood close enough, his cuteness would rub off on me.

***

Yesterday, Asher hit several teachers at school. He also threw what may well have been the biggest tantrum I have ever seen in my life when I wanted him to put away his clothes and he wanted to go somewhere with his daddy instead. Let me tell you, I did not want to give him a cake pop. I could have ripped his head off in the midst of it.

I sure hope he and I can both mostly remember those Trader Joe’s types of moments as the years go by. And forget the times he treats people like he’s an abusive boyfriend. I think it’s possible.

Ah, three.