So I’ve got this middle kid. He loves all animals and dinosaurs and casually busts out obscure facts he’s memorized about them. His favorite song on Spotify is called “1,000 Fart Sounds” (look it up, it’s a thing). He loves baseball, devours every single Calvin and Hobbes book he can find, and asks to ride his bike from the moment he opens his eyes to the minute he lays himself back down. He makes weird faces in every photo ever, he’s great at pressing all the buttons everywhere we go (both literally and figuratively), and he tries to rough and rowdy his baby brother on the reg while simultaneously menacing his older sister whenever possible. He’s SO awesome, but sort of in a hot-mess-express kind of way.

We were leaving the city one afternoon, stuck on the interstate on-ramp and slowly crawling forward. There was a woman holding a sign and asking for help on the side of the road, so I handed my five year old son a baggie of snacks and supplies to pass over to her through his window. She smiled at him, graciously accepted the gift, and simply said, “Blessings to you”. There was a whole cluster of people just beyond her that had set up camp under the bridge overpass seeking shelter for the night. It was already pretty chilly, and the sun hadn’t even gone down yet.

He laid on the wet pavement and wrestled with his tire, and as we talked he peppered our conversation with step by step instructions on what to do if I were changing my own flat tire. He said that teaching skills like this was actually kind of therapeutic for him. Funny thing, I actually learn best from watching someone else demonstrate.