Gentle Touches

February 29, 2008

Molly and I both got a kick out of this note from daycare the other day:

Alex had an awesome moment outside, sitting in the box outside -- he was aggravated by another friend -- but when I told him to be gentle, "use gentle hands," he touched her head gently -- when I praised him he just lit up. > >

We thought this was funny because he now seems to be in a stage where he thinks he can make up for being mean by immediately being nice, and both Molly & I have experienced this.

For example, the very evening we got this note, Alex whacked me in the eye with a plastic toy man when he got out of the bathtub. “Ow!” I said. “That hurt Daddy!” (It really did hurt — he’s getting stronger every day.) “Can you say you’re sorry?”

And right away, he started doing “gentle touches” to my face, then he said, “Hug!” and gave me a big hug. Even though he was naked and soaking wet from the tub, it was kind of cute.