What a character

When I wake up, my grandson begins to draw a picture of my head. 

He says, “Your hair is stumbling all around” and, feeling pity, adds, 

“That’s ok, everybody makes mistakes.” 
My husband the musician attends our grandson’s choral concert 
and says, “I want you to learn to play an instrument,” and my grandson answers, 
“I have an instrument already. It’s my mouth. I sing.” 
Last week we saw the slimy track of a snail across the rug 

and my grandson says, “We have a pet snail now, don’t we?”  
He climbs out of the car at school and says, “My teacher told me 
she has eyes in the back of her head, but I think she’s just kidding, don’t you?” 
My grandson pretends to be Iron Man but drops his shield and hammer
to kiss a bolweevel.  At dinner my grandson asks, “What is romantic love?” 
I tell him, “It’s love that grownups can feel for each other,” 

and he says, “But I have romantic love for you.”  
My grandson sees a moth in his room and wants to know, 
“Will it eat my underpants?” 
Moths prefer cotton, I explain, and he shrieks, 
“My underpants are safe because they’re polytheist!” 

He tells me, “You are the cutest member of our family” and I reply, 

“No, you are the cutest” and then he frowns and tells me, “You should 

respect yourself more.” I leave the Birth of a Planet playing on TV 

while I use the bathroom. Thinking it’s the news, my grandson pounds 

with loud force on the bathroom door. “Quick! Quick! Come out! The earth

is being bombed by giant rocks!” He reads my poems and asks, “How come 

your poems never rhyme?” We walk by the lake with his friend. I listen to them 

talk about destroying ships and catching crocodiles and ask, 

“What do little girls your age talk about?” and my grandson answers, 

“I don’t know, we don’t listen to what girls say.”  

The hairdresser tells him, “You’re such a goodlooking guy. I bet you hear 

that a lot.” My grandson nods, “Yup, but I can handle it.”