Candy and Tech Support

Our apartment's office keeps a steady supply of candy available for everyone.

It's a special treat for us to take Mal up there to see what they have available. I think the walk is only about a quarter mile round trip. But there's a pretty meaningful hill involved. And lots of traffic. And lots of distractions. And lots of Texas summer heat. Except that I usually get home after they're closed and the temperature's dropping back down into the 80's this time of year.

So it isn't a "let's take an extra-long weekend to see your grandparents" kind of treat. But we still usually only get to really enjoy their snack bar on the weekends.

Don't get me wrong. Mal has a great time just hanging out in the clubhouse after hours, watching me drink coffee out of their Starbucks machine (black...the creamer goes away with the candy) and just soaking it all up. I think he enjoys that almost as much as he did the time we spent hanging out at the pool in the rain with the fresh bag of candy from the office.

My first instinct was "It's starting to rain...we need to get inside!"

Then I remembered that thunderstorms don't really happen here (though we do get plenty of flooding elsewhere), and that we don't really have to worry much about catching a chill. So we just enjoyed the rare rain shower and munched on his snack bag (would it make me look like a better parent if I claimed that I ate the Goldfish while he ate the real junk food?)

The important take-away from that part of the story is that we get snack-bags of junk (mostly marshmallows and M&Ms) from the office that are pretty special to Mal.

The other day, I spent a long time on the phone with either tech support or customer service about our internet connection. I won't bore you with details. The basic point is that it wasn't working.

While I was on that call, Mal periodically brought me pieces of that candy from those trips to the office.

Laura was doing a heroic job of keeping him distracted while this was all going on. I wound up opening my "office" doors wide so I could run back and forth between that computer and my laptop to try to explain to the tech what the difference was between the wireless and wired connections. And scrabbling frantically through one of our junk drawers to try to find something I could use to factory reset our modem.

So she did an amazing job of keeping him away from all the useless garbage that I usually just keep locked up and really should throw away.

But every once in a while, he'd remember that I was in the other room and bring me a piece or two of candy. Had he tasted it first? Shoved it up his nose? When you have a kid this age, asking those sorts of questions isn't wise. I thanked him profusely and set it off to the side.

And then happily run back to play with Laura.

We've tried really hard to avoid any sort of "You're being nice, I approve/you're not being nice, I don't approve" kind of thing with either child. We want to build a loving, nurturing foundation for them where there is never any question about approval.

We want both kids to know that we'll love them even if either's a total jackass (though we obviously hope to avoid that...it's a safe bet that it will happen).

I still tried to give him a "thank you" hug when I finally got off the phone. He didn't want anything to do with me at that point. I felt sad about this, but, hey, I'm the grown-up. (How did this happen?!)

Shortly after this, he realized that his candy bag was empty.

Which would have been a horrible thing. Except that Laura had watched me stash the candy he'd shared so she could give it all back.

I don't know what kind of message this sends to the poor tyke. Maybe it just emphasizes that she's the giver in this relationship? Or that I'm the sucker who thinks I'm getting something when I'm really just being taken for a ride?

Whatever. His impulse was to be kind and share, and I'm proud that he's learning that one while he's young.