I haven’t done these in a while, though the johnny cakes could probably pass.

Yesterday for some reason, the traffic gods smiled down upon I-66 and there was nothing like the normal backup from centreville to manassas. Which means I arrived at my kids’ school about 15-20 minutes earlier than I usually do.

There? is the big playground, and then a smaller separated playground specifically for the toddlers. I usually get Ethan first and then Jocelyn because it’s easier to holler at Ethan a zillion times to “Come ON, we’re GOING!” in the toddler playground than to holler at Jocelyn. You holler, but she doesn’t listen, and by then, she’s on top of the huge jungle gym hanging from the monkey bars about to plummet to her Dhoom, and I have to climb up there, in heels and a skirt, in about 2 seconds flat to save my baby girl from certain extinction.

Anyway.

So yesterday, I arrive on the big playground and scan around for my son. He is perched on top of a little play coupe car while his friend, JT, scoots it around. My first instinct is to holler across the playground that that’s not safe, but obviously, they are fine, and obviously the teachers let them do that since there they were, doing it, and me telling them not to is just going to go over like water off a ducks back, and they’ll probably do it again tomorrow when I’m not around ANYWAY.

So I go over and do the family whistle thing and he spots me and hops down and hollers, “SUPER SPEED!” and thus, with his fist thrust out in front of him, he runs over to me, trying to knock me over in his effort to hug me and then swallow me whole.

“Hi honey!” *hug hug hug* “How are you doing?”

“Good! I was on the CAR! I can get up there all by myself!”

“Yes, I saw.” *don’t dwell don’t dwell don’t dwell on your son lying on the ground with his head cracked open* “Did you have a good day? Did you make good choices?”

“Yes!”

After a brief talk with the teachers on duty on how he has been doing, we head for the door to go inside and then out to Jocelyn’s playground. On the way there, a voice calls behind us, “Ethan!” And Ethan tosses over his shoulder, “I’m busy! I gotta go!” without stopping. The voice persists though, and I see a little boy from his class run up, so I stop so Ethan can talk to him. He is a smaller boy, I suspect a bit younger than Ethan, and I don’t think english is his first language, so I didn’t quite make out what he was saying until after he said it, and Ethan leaned forward and gives him a big hug. He was asking for a hug, it was so cute. Then a brief, “See you tomorrow!” on both sides, and we again turn and head for the door to the school.

We go inside and then the door peeps open and the little boy sticks his head inside to call out, “I love you Ethan!”

“I love you too, Roberto!” Ethan calls back.

It was just too cute.