My daughter-in-law: “It’s so beautiful!”
(Thank you Malabrigo for the Rios.)
I asked Parker if it was okay to give his brother a soft blankie like his. He gave it a quick looking-over–darker green and a different pattern–and was quite fine with that.
And then it got ignored as sleepy things do while toys got played with and Parker helped me pick apples (don’t forget the scissors to cut the tape around the clamshells) and those apples got sliced and handed around and lunch got eaten and bubbles got blown as little boys danced.
Turns out Hudson had had a bad night being in a strange place and after falling asleep on the plane and having to wake up again after they’d landed and he was tired and so was his mom. She scooped him up to go set him down for a nap.
That toy in his hand just wasn’t enough in that moment. I quickly grabbed the green woolly softness and hunched down to be eye to eye with my 16-month-old grandson.
“Do you want a blankie?”
He gave me the saddest face in the whole wide world and nodded and said, “Uh HUH” and reached out to my outstretched hands, then snuggled his face into it on his mommy’s shoulder, holding it and her tight.
His first sentence to us ever. And with that it was his forever.