Tjabe

As we drove from Kansas City to Iowa, the sun was beginning to come up (we left at 5 am). Tjabe, who hadn't gone back to sleep, commented, "Look Dad, it's getting day-er!"

*****************************************

The other day I thought it would be good to mention to Tjabe the whole "Stranger" lesson. I explained to him that if someone he didn't know came up to him outside and asked him to go with them, he should say no and run away to find me, or someone he did know. I also told him to never open the door to someone he didn't know. After letting him think about this for a minute, I asked him: "If a person you don't know comes up to you when you're playing outside and says, 'Little buddy, come for a car ride with me,' what should you do?"

He looked confused, and replied: "Run away." (long pause) "But Mom, if they ask me to go in their car with them, and they don't have my carseat, I can't go with them."

So he kind of gets it, but maybe not for the right reasons.

****************************************

On our way to Denver, we left home very early (3 am). We woke the kids and put them in their seats. Maggie was happy as a clam, as usual, but I wasn't sure how Tjabe's attitude would be at that hour, since he can be a bear when he wakes up. But as he was waiting in his car seat for us to go, he practically shivered with joy and said, "I'm so esciged [rhymes with excited]!" Down the road Sam asked him (yes, we were making fun of his mis-pronounciation) : "Tjabe are you so escited?" "No Dad," he replied, "esciged."

When his tiredness finally hit him, half an hour later, he began getting poetic, and we heard him murmuring in the backseat: "...Big trucks in the night... bright moon in the sky..." Then he drifted off to sleep.