Skye's ALMOST First Sleepover

There was a meeting in Skye's kindergarten classroom at noon. Just for parents. I had to find a sitter and couldn't think of anyone until finally I remembered my 90-year old neighbor, Thelma. Skye has met her a few times when I've brought Thelma to the doctor or the grocery store. He tells her things like "I'd rather be a child than an old person because you have more friends." She is never offended by his comments and always answers honestly and from the heart. "Most of my friends are six feet under ground." That quieted him up for a few minutes while he mulled it over.

Thelma agreed to watch Skye. He sat perched on on the edge of her couch like a well trained poodle and watched cable. His lunch box that contained a soy yogurt and a spoon sat next to him. When I returned an hour later, both Skye and his lunchbox were in the exact position as when I'd left them.

He remembered that he didn't eat his soy yogurt and I brought him to the kitchen table where he gobbled it up in seconds. Then we returned to the living room and talked, with the TV off, about how it took Thelma an hour to do a ten-minute sewing job on her slacks, how Thelma's cat likes to sleep in the sun and as it moves
so does the cat.

Skye was reclined on Thelma's couch. He wanted me to walk four houses down the sidewalk to our house and get him another soy yogurt and his sleeping bag. He's been talking about wanting to do a sleep over and he thought Thelma's house was a good place to have one.

I tried to explain that Thelma probably had other things to do than to have an overnight guest and convinced him to get his sandals back on and walk home for another yogurt.

He ran the whole way, making sure he was always a few steps ahead of me. When we reached the driveway we stopped for a little bit and talked. Then before I could get to the door before him he ran ahead of me. I could see that he wanted to win the race he was having with me in his mind. I said "Skye, are you being competitive?" He opened the door wide and said "No. I'm not being competitive. I'm being a
jerk." When we got inside he asked what competitive means. "It just means you're trying to win...Sometimes it can be thought of as being a jerk." He looked very satisfied with himself.