A small boy’s love

T is back in swimming lessons again, this time as a dolphin. He loves it! Splashing, jumping, and diving. He’s working his way up because he wants to be a killer whale (next step), then a sea monster (ogopogo) and a sword fish (marlin). For his first lesson last week he confided his hope that he would have Melissa as his teacher again. She was his teacher for Minnows and he had a huge crush on her. When were waiting for T’s lesson to begin, we saw Melissa in the pool so T got very excited. But when the time came for T’s lesson, Melissa told T she was teaching Minnows. T briefly struggled with staying as a Minnow, but I introduced him to his dolphin teacher, Sophie, and she lead him off for class. I spied him jumping, splashing and giving Sophie high-fives and on the way home he said, “Sophie’s very nice. I like her. And maybe when I’m in killer whales I can get another nice teacher.”

As I’ve mentioned before, T is a big hugger. A few weeks ago we were out for dinner with his little friend C and all through dinner she wanted to go give T a hug. And yesterday, T was petting Gretel (our cat) while she was in her basket – scratching her head which she loves, so she was purring away. T was apparently so overwhelmed with love for our kitty, that he crawled into her basket to give her a hug! (I did ensure the hug happened without flattening the cat.)

One night last week, while I was cooking dinner, T appeared by my side and handed me an envelope addressed “to my Mommy”. Inside was a sheet of paper that read “I love you Mommy. T xxoo”. (He had a little bit of help with the writing from Daddy!)

I don’t know how our boy is so big-hearted and full of love with a reserved dad and prickly mum but I hope he always is and that the world doesn’t change him too much.