Dating : Children can be so funny.

Children can be so funny.

A darling two-year-old I know, who has few interests besides pocket cars, does carry around one bedraggled, half-stuffed giraffe named Giraffy. Giraffy’s neck is probably longer than it used to be, from overuse as a handle, because Giraffy goes almost everywhere the darling Boy Baby goes.

Except.

Giraffy is forbidden to fly in my house, but he does it anyway. He landed in the works of one ceiling fan, and I had issued a warning. Eventually Giraffy landed in a bit of a spill on my stove. He ended up in giraffe jail for an afternoon. Lesson learned. No more flying in my house! (In the kitchen, at least.)

The darling two-year-old, part boy and part baby, is barely able to talk in a decipherable way about his joys and sorrows. His words are garbled, in our ears. A book that appeared in my house, from inside a suitcase full of Boy Baby clothing, is about some rascally creature that nibbles at things and so, is named “Nibbles”. For a long time, I could not imagine why a toddler boy would be asking me for something I could only decipher as “naughty nipples.”

Once I figured it out, I tried repeatedly to correct his pronunciation. However, sometimes we just have to accept others, in spite of, or even because of, their differences. I never really thought I’d ever talk to an innocent child about naughty nipples.

With a straight face.

Sometimes communication with him also garbles while we speak and he listens. He is very literal in his interpretation of adult speech. If you say come here, and he is not facing you, he will walk backward toward you.

Because you forgot to say “turn around and come here.”

Also, if you merely say, “Turn around,” he will turn all the way around (maybe twice and maybe creating a small celebration with his arms and his smile in the process) and still end with his back to you — trying so hard to please, and although overwhelmingly pleasing, still not quite making the mark.

The other night, he was not managing to finish his supper, because imaginations of foods that were able to fly kept overtaking his world.

Bless him, he very quickly assured us he had heard and was willing to comply. Sweet Boy Baby! And that very moment he began cleaning his plate, humbly and with great diligence and determination to please us.

With his adorable pudgy hands.

Imitating the movements of a person washing dishes, with food and sauces oozing onto the table, down his small forearm, and onto the entire towel we had applied to him as a bib.

So, of course I quickly amended: “NO! NO! Don’t clean your plate! Don’t clean your plate!”

Somehow, I never really thought I’d ever tell a child that, either.

The laughter, until the tears rolled, fast melted the confusion on his poor little face. Since then, we sit down at table and wonder what adventure awaits us at this meal.

We’ve not been disappointed.

Boy Baby also owns and loves an enviable red car. About five times the size of a pocket car, its metal construction gives it a good, solid feel in hand, a heft that makes one know this is a good toy. Boy Baby can sense that, too. Its precision construction enables it to travel ten feet, if only someone will draw it backward ten inches. Boy Baby has mastered this toy and loves scooting it all over the house.

He has not mastered the idea that Red Car should not park in random places in the kitchen. Red Car was in red-car jail for a few hours one day until that lesson finally sank in.

Boy Baby has a five-year-old sister who purely loves him like a son. Her ability to read his needs, translate his baby talk, and find where Giraffy is hiding are of inestimable worth to me. Her willingness to yield a toy to him would melt a person’s heart.

Big Sis also loves “reading” and had attached herself to one of our books, for hours. And had not yielded, when Boy Baby wanted to take over this book. It’s about a mom playing games like pat-a-cake with her little ones. (I suspect both children are missing mom a bit during this visit.) On two occasions, she had appealed to me that he was trying to take it from her and I made the decision: He should find other books; we have many books; he should not take this one away from her.

All seemed well.

Yesterday, Big Sis was seated on the floor, contented, reading The Book, when she suddenly came to me sobbing, wailing, and bleeding.

Boy Baby had whacked her upside the head with Red Car.

Big Sis got a lot of attention: rinsing blood from her long hair, arranging an ice pack, settling her with the most cushiony cushions under a fan, hugs, a soothing back rub, and a little kiss or two on her forehead.

Boy baby was allowed to watch from a short distance, and required to “say sorry” up close and personal.

A friendly nurse assured me the top of the ear, though apparently nearly pierced and painfully bruised, along with the scalp behind it, would heal without complication and Big Sis’s clotting mechanisms are in tip-top shape.

And Red Car is in red-car jail, until an undetermined time. Probably until the parentals make the scene.

That may be today or tomorrow.

I’m sure these children need their dad and mom and must go home.

But I am certainly in no rush.