Day 70: Making friends

My newest friend

He's round and pudgy and almost one year old. We do not speak a common language and he looks at me suspiciously as he clings to his oma (grandmother) for a long, long time. I maintain some distance and begin a game of peek-a-boo. He's not buying it. 


A while later, I join him on the floor where he has just started playing with a set of interlocking cardboard boxes. My strategy is to build a tower, sure that he will delight in knocking it down. I've been here before :-) Up goes the tower. Wham and down it goes. I shake my head and build it up again. Slam, bang...down again. And up again. His little arm swings wide and, just inches from its target, it happens. He starts shaking his head and laughing. Shaking his head just like I was shaking mine. 


Just a moment later, he crawls over and climbs up into my lap, examining the polka dots on my top. He'd grab my glasses too if he could but I've been around this block before and head him off at the pass. "You surely have a special gift with kids," says his oma. Yup, and they have their way with me. Everybody's happy!