Flashback Friday!

Today's flashback takes us to October 1996. Alex was 16 months old. Such a cute little man. Brad and I looked through so many albums last night, looking for a picture that told a cute story. There are so many with this first-born. We have a multitude of pictures of him just sleeping. We honestly had never seen anything more precious in our lives.

This particular story was a Friday evening. I was heading out, and had made cookies for the boys. They were cooling on the counter, and Brad and I were talking in the adjacent room. We watched out of the side of our eye as Alex put together the (almost) perfect chocolate chip cookie heist. He took a chair from the dining room table, and began to push it into the kitchen. No small feat for a 16 month-old. There was some grunting involved, and some extra heaving as he negotiated the chair over the carpet. Once he hit kitchen floor, the noise alone would have tipped us off to his scheme. Little did he know we were watching the enitre thing. Finally, he got that chair into place. We grabbed the camera and snuck around to get a good view, thinking he would grab one cookie and make a run for it. Oh, no. This kid knows how to seize an opportunity!

Alex began to pick up one cookie, take a bite, then put it back on the rack. Then another cookie. One bite and then back on the rack. He was on his fourth cookie when I started with the pictures.
He turned around after the camera went off, and with a bite still dangling from his lips, gave me his best "I'm so busted" look.

What doesn't show on the picture is what happened next. Without pulling that dangling bite into his mouth, he simply reached out his chunky hand and offered me his cookie. He knew, from a very young age, the key to his mommy's heart. Yes, I'm raising that boy right. He knows how to share a chocolate chip cookie.

And, really, if you take a close look at those cookies, who can blame him?! Now that cute little pudgy-cheeked baby is far from needing a chair to reach the counter. He's passed me in height (I'm still ahead in the weight category!), and has maintained a love for the finer things in life...mom's chocolate chip cookies. And he's still sweet enough to share his chocolate chips cookies. Well, most of the time.