Jacob arrived last night in a grumpty mood--he often does that on Friday after a hard week at pre-school. After sweetly telling me the new flowers on my porch were pretty, he wanted nothing more to do with me other than have me provide milk, snacks, and dinner. Over dinner, he announced he didn't like what I was eating--smoked salmon, cream cheese, and stir-fried vegetables, an odd combination I admit--but he liked his dinner--chicken nuggets, with ketchup of course, and broccoli, though he didn't eat the latter. Announcing he was finished (no, "May I be excused please?) he retreated to the daybed to watch TV. When I thanked him for eating dinner with me, he growled, "I didn't eat dinner with you." All my advances were rebuffed, which I told him hurt my feelings (grandparents will identify). I decided about seven I'd turn on the monitors, leave him in the family room, and retreat to the office to watch, "Who Do You Think You Are," the new ancestry.com program I really like but hardly ever get to watch because Jacob is usually here on Friday nights. I admit it's hard to watch my program with Batman coming through on the minotor loud (very) and clear.
You guessed it. Within ten minutes, I heard him pad through the dining room. He came into the office, looked around, announced he wanted his daddy, and then said, "I want you to hold me." So he climbed up on my lap and we spent over half an hour looking for and finding dog videos on the internet. Sometimes he laughed, sometimes he said, "That's a bad dog," and always he dug his knees into my thighs and whacked my shins and calves with his shoes. At one point, he said, "Juju, I like you."
When he tired of that, it was back to the family room, where I settled down with a manscript I'm reading, and he watched the DVD. But pretty soon, he said, "I want you to cuddle me." So we cuddled the rest of the long evening (his parents stayed out very late, at least for Jacob and me). We watched Beauty and the Beast, and at one point I asked if the beast was going to turn into a prince. He gave me a pitying look and said knowledgeably, "Not yet, Juju!"
But as I lay there on the daybed, with that warm little body cuddling close to mine, sometimes throwing itself across my body, I thought it just doesn't get much better than this. And when he left I got an unusual number of kisses and, as they went to the car, frequent calls of "I love you, Juju."
The change in his disposistion was sudden and dramatic, but the lesson learned is that we have to let chidlren come to us, even our own grandchildren, and not push our affection on them. It's a lesson that the wisest of us know about strange children, dogs, and cats but we forget about it with those we love so desperately. And it's even a lesson probably to be lealrned about friendships--let it be a two-way street. Because I love to cook and entertain, I sometimes think I wear my closest friends (and neighbors) out with dinner invitations, and I'm learning to back off.
Then again I have some friends who never make the phone call, suggest the lunch, take the initiative, though they're always delighted when you approach them. Then you have to decide whether that friendship is a blessing or a burden.
Life's relationships are not easy to puzzle out, but Jacob taught me a good lesson. I'll probably have to re-learn it twenty-eleven times.
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