Dinner’s sweetest morsel is tot’s charisma
I have been charmed. After more than a dozen years of marriage, a couple with which we are friends, had their first child, a boy, a tiny, unexpected blessing that changed their lives to the extreme, although extremely good.
Anyway, the boy is more than a year old now, and we had he and his parents over for dinner recently. Anyone who has read this spot before knows that guests coming to our house for a visit is a major production. Since one of them was going to be a toddler, able to crawl faster than most people can walk, we decided it would be a grand notion to shampoo the carpet. We do this periodically, since we share our home with a dog and a pair of cats.
I handle the heavy chores. So it was up to me to drag the carpet cleaner out of the family/storage room upstairs and then load it with soap and water, etc. It took about an hour all told but the end result was very satisfying.
Preparing the meal the next day was another thrill, especially since I had decided to prepare one of my favorite and famous dishes – ham loaf. The trouble is I have to grind the ham. We used to have a food processor, which disappeared when we moved two years ago, and last summer we found a hand-cranked meat grinder among the items in the basement, but somehow it also has gone missing.
All I had was a tiny electric chopper that jammed each time I dropped in more than a modicum of meat. Frustrated, I hopped in the car, drove to a local store, and bought a new food processor.
We spent about three hours getting everything ready. The phone rang. Our guests were going to be a little late. Rather than being disheartened, we were a little relieved. It gave us more time to relax and make sure all the preparations were in order.
We had a sumptuous meal, marvelous dessert and good conversation.
But the fellow who stole the show was the toddler. His name is Marshall. And he and I have a special bond. Maybe it’s because I’m just a bigger kid or it could be my roly-poly physique. But when he gets within an arm’s reach of me he leans out for me to take him.
He teased me all through dinner, his large green eyes fixed on me to see if I would respond. When I did, he’d giggle and grin. His mother was sitting between us at the table and he would pass over his spoon for me to look at. I had handed him a life-sized ceramic cardinal and he clutched it all through dinner, releasing it again only for me to look at. Later we went exploring. He found a box of books in my office/den/library and proceeded to pull some out, passing each one to me after he had looked it over.
As we all sat in the living room chatting he busied himself by trying to pet one of our cats, attempting to take all the magazines off the coffee table and walking on his knees while he tried to carry a small cat statue from the dining room. Every few steps he’d fall over but he never lost his grip on that statue. He was bringing it to me.
He walks a little and found the height of the coffee table to be just right to use for balance as we stepped along its perimeter. Every now and again he would look up at one of us, smile, chortle and then turn his head away like he was being bashful.
Now when I was in first grade the teacher always seemed to take pity on me over any other kid in the class when it came time to haul on those old-fashioned clunky rubber boots with the metal clasps. The other kids would be struggling on the floor but teacher would lift me onto her lap and help me get mine on.
Marshall has that much charisma and more. He’s got that kid I was almost five decades ago beat by about 20 miles. I feel sorry for anyone who falls under his spell.
But then his parents are very much like that, too. So I suppose he gets it naturally.
I think there’s the makings of a very fine person in that tiny package. I’ll keep you posted.
Have a good day.
Jim Pletcher is the Herald-Standard business editor. E-mail: jpletcher@heraldstandard.com.