At the park, Ford helped himself to another child’s sand toys while I was spotting Chas on the gym. I watched him engineer his play and block out the rest of the world, as I often try to do when I’m, say, typing on my laptop. So serious! I stood there smiling at him.
The other child’s mother, when I glanced up at her face, was smiling down on him also. Then she bent down to hand Ford a shovel.
“What’s your name?”
“That’s not important.” he responded, like a calculator.
Where does he come up with this stuff? I love it!
From my observations—He has absolutely no one in this world whom he feels he has to impress to feel good about himself. It is his rock-solid sense of self–the vocabulary of a college grad, and a repertoire of defense mechanisms similar to a rattle snake to maintain his position.