After running some evening errands with my oldest boy, we stop in for some dinner at our neighborhood White Spot. A quick dinner, just a Mama and her boy. To Jack it's just a last minute decision to grab a bite to eat, for me I secretly feel like I owe this boy a good night. I had lost my temper with him earlier, and had been short with him most of the day. While waiting for our food to arrive, we color and we chat. We think to play a game of Hangman, so I go first. I draw my noose, and _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ at the bottom. After a few missed guesses, Jack gets lucky with his letters and guesses Hamburger. He's right. Then I do the name of his best friend, Kai, and though shorter it proved to be harder and so his man gets hung. And now it's his turn. I see him look around at our surroundings and then write out _ _ _ _. Hmmm...ok, it must be something he just saw I assume. I look at the table beside us, see a beer on it and guess that. Nope. So I randomly guess some letters, until it starts to look like this: _ O _ E. Then our food arrives, so we stop playing.
I ask a few minutes later, "what was the word?"
"Love" he replies.
I just stopped and stared at him, while my heart sang and cried at the same time. My sweet 8 year old, who is a typical boy with boy things on his mind, who has had a grumpy Mom for most of the week, thinks of the word 'Love' during a quick game of hangman.
