Dialing Up the Cute

In the past couple of days, Bry has been working hard to notch up his cute rating:

Scene I: After attending a birthday party last weekend, Bry has become fascinated with birthdays and the birthday song. The day we went out to celebrate my birthday, Bry wandered around the house reciting, "Happy birthday, dear mama! Happy birthday to you! Am mam more!" (And many more...). We've been singing the birthday song a lot. To mama, daddy, Bryson, all of his teachers, and most of the other kids at school. Also to shirt, lion, blanket, and other assorted objects lying around the room.

Scene II: Today when I picked up Bry from school, he was on the playground. As we were leaving, he exclaimed, "Hugs! Stuart!" He walked up to Stuart, an adorable kid a couple of months younger than Bry, and stood next to him for a moment before giving him a big hug. We've been informed by Bry's teachers that after he goes down the slide, builds a tower, or dumps a prodigious amount of sand onto the gas tank of a toy lawnmower (he is, apparently, working on his portfolio as a saboteur), he shouts exuberantly, "Yay, Bryson!" This self-esteem booster and expression of joy has caught on in Bry's classroom. Apparently several of the kids, but especially Stuart, will shout out "Yay, Bryson!" when excited or after they have accomplished something they deem cheer-worthy. Makes me wonder if we're going to get a phone call some night from Stuart's parents, querying us as to why their son is always cheering for our kid.

Scene III: Also this evening, I decided to stop at the library with Bry on our way home from school, given that traffic had for once not slowed us to a crawl, turning the five-mile drive into a 25-minute endurance test. Steve met up with us at about the point when Bry was reaching his I'm-holding-it-together-as-best-as-I-can-so-you-
better-get-me-out-of-here-ASAP point. I had been telling Bry that we would go home when daddy (the carrier of the library card) arrived. As soon as Steve walked into the children's area, Bry shot towards him, calling out, "Home!" He bolted right past Steve's open arms, and out the door into the main library. He was halfway to the main entrance before he stopped to turn around to see if we were following him. Steve attempted to man the self-checkout process with one hand, while holding Bry in his other arm. In the meantime, I was on the very important mission of searching for the They Might Be Giants' Here Come the 123s album. Very important business. I didn't find it. Bry, having had enough of waiting for daddy to scan the stack of 17 books, squirmed out of Steve's arms and onto the floor. He plucked the fire truck book from the top of the stack, shouted out, "Read!" and did an about-face just before running into another, less energetic library patron. Being the eternal charmer, Bry held the book up to this woman, said, "Fire truck book! Read! Here!" and plopped down on the industrial doormat just inside the library entrance. He probably would have stayed there too, disrupting the flow of incoming pedestrian traffic with not only his presence, but also his irresistible cuteness, had I not scooped him up and shuffled him off to the car.

Cuteness. We has it, no?