The best compliment

AJ's teacher told me yesterday that he is "such a sweet little boy;" ...that they "all wish [they] could clone him;" ...and that of all the kids in the class, he is the one who'll sit down when he's asked to, or help clean up after an activity.

I can't tell you how happy that makes me.

At first, I got all nonplussed at her compliments, and tripped over deflecting them as fast as possible. As if my saying, "Well, you know, he's not always an angel at home," would somehow "equal him out" to all the other kids. And I would feel less self-congratulatory because, you know, Husband and I don't always have the answers as parents. We're not doing any better disciplining/raising/loving him than any of the other parents, I wanted to tell her.

But then I had to stop myself, because Jiminy Cricket looked up at me from the floor and said, "Um, excuse me? That compliment wasn't for you, Swellhead. It was for AJ." ("Geez, Jiminy...," I responded. "Ya gotta be so snippy??") Butno, seriously... AJ, himself -- separate from me or anything I do to him, around him, with him -- has a gentle make-up, a well-behaved demeanor. It's him! It's biology. Nothing really to do with me at all!

It's the tiniest bit bittersweet -- it's so easy, natural, for us parents of the littlest ones to think they are "mine, all mine." That they're a direct result of US. And they are to a certain extent, but after a while, they actually do become real little PEOPLE, as my mother always says. And we have to learn how to release our grip from around them, and watch them BE. And be proud FOR them, but not OF.

I'm so pleased. Oh, I know... we're not finished by a long shot, and every good thing that we manage to do as parents will help shape the person he eventually becomes. But it looks like he's got himself a pretty solid foundation already.