I bought a handful of grapes for just-turned-2-year-old Kip at People’s Market (to try to redirect his hot pursuit for all things at the candy counter), and when we had returned home and the tears for not getting candy subsided, he sat down to his little bowl of grapes to relish the treat.
There were three separate small clusters, and as he started into the second one, he mentioned to me that the third was “Keep for Daddy, Daddy come home.” He finished the second cluster, and I noticed a look of consternation as he snipped the first two or three grapes off the final cluster.
“This for Daddy,” he said as he continued nibbling into them. Finally, one lone grape sat in the bowl. “Give this Daddy.”
Thinking he might need a little support to keep his determination strong, I commented, “I think Daddy will like that.” But before I was finished speaking, the grape had been thrust into his mouth and perched in the clamp formed by his upper and lower rows of front teeth. Feeling the effort was lost and his resolve overcome by the goodness of those grapes, I said nothing more.
It was he who spoke, somewhat unsurely and in a rather muffled tone, for the grape was still balanced between his teeth, “This one for Daddy, Daddy come home.”
“Yes, Daddy likes grapes,” I answered.
He spit the grape back into the bowl, and ran to put it on Daddy’s bathroom counter. Most assuredly, love in action.