Friday, June 21, 2013

Children's charm goes straight to the heart


Luky;
A MAN I worked with has a little son, the cutest little character you ever saw.
Once I read a book about a bachelor who, when describing the disinterested regard of happily married women towards unmarried men, called it "the glazed indifference of the newly wed."

Having all those children myself, I suppose I regard other people's children also with a certain glazed indifference.
But my colleague's son is something else entirely.
Nobody could feel indifferent to him.

It is not only his appearance which brings us all to our knees.
He is short for his age - almost three - and he is intelligent enough for a four year old.
He wears little white-rimmed glasses, framing behind spectacles the most innocent eyes you ever saw.
But it's his remarkable self-possession that we all admire most.

Confidence
My office is at the entrance to the building.
The glass door has a low handle, and many's the time I've been  typing when I've heard the front door open.
Looking up from my typing, I'd spot him hurtling across my office to his father's door.
There the handle is high.

He does not talk, he does not greet anyone, and he does not ask anyone to open the door.
He simply beats a tattoo on his father's door (which his father does not hear on account of the air conditioning), then stands confidently, waiting for someone to open for him.
And someone always does.

His eyes brimming with laughter, lips twitching as he tried to keep his poise, the little guy practically forces you into acquiring some of your own.

Loving leap
His father, normally a shy man, smiles and holds out his arms and the little chap leaps on to his lap and peers through his glasses at the piles of papers scattered on his dad's desk, the perfect little accountant.

We have given up trying to have a conversation with him.
He is so patently an adult in his own mind that one would feel foolish to talk down to him.
I left him alone, hoping he would eventually strike up a conversation from his end.
And last week he did.
Wearing a pair of green trousers, he paused midway through my office and without preamble informed me: "Vandag is ek pragtig aangetrek." *
Then with his usual sang-froid he betook himself to his father's office, this time having the door opened to him by the sales manager.

Flu
His father was absent once with the flu.
Three days later he returned, pale and with his throat still hoarse, obviously far from well.
"I suppose your little man nursed you with unflagging care?" I asked, laughing.
He rolled his eyes heavenward.
"I love him, he's the light of my life," he croaked, "but heavens! He's industrious.
In and out of my bedroom with his toys and his tools.
Hops on the bed next to me, pulling the blankets straight and pulling up my pillows, then out again."
"I know," I nodded, "and as solemn as a little dominee throughout."

Special appeal
What joys children do bring us.
My husband put it in a nutshell.
"Often when we used to have a tiff, you and I, I didn't feel like coming home to you.
I'd think of the baby - and there always was one there - I'd melt at the thought, hop into the car and go straight home.
"If women only knew the power they have over their husbands when they give them children, they'd have more of them."

Large family
But then my husband thought nothing of having a large family.
Where he came from everyone did.

"My mother was ashamed of her life on Sundays, going to Mass with only seven children, what with Mrs Flaherty from over the road sweeping in with her ten, and Mrs Murphy's fourteen."

Perhaps we'll never see such big families again.
The smaller, more manageable family has become acceptable.
But to my mind, be they one or ten in your brood, children's charm go straight to the heart.

*'Today I'm beautifully dressed"

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