we're gathering for a meeting in the fireside room, and he wanders in. i call him over, introduce him to the girls.
"bethany, cheryl, this is coen."
"i'm five."
indeed, he is.
he's one of those kids with glasses and more energy than their body - or their mom - knows what to do with. but there's a trick to making him sit still, and i know it.
"coen, count to a thousand."
his mind snaps to attention. there is a task at hand, and he is going to perform. he is austere.
"ok. one, two, fthree, fo', five, sis, seben, eight--" SNORT "--nine, tin, leben, twelb..."
dallas enters.
"ok, coen, you gotta leave now, we're gonna have a meeting."
coen pays no attention. there is a task at hand, and he is going to perform. he is austere.
"twinny-two, twinny-fthree--" SNORT "--twinny-fo', twinny-five..."
dallas picks him up, sets him outside the door, shuts it.
we begin. there's a knock at the door.
dallas opens it.
"fiffy-sis, fiffy-seben, fiffy-eight--"
"ok, coen. you just stand there and keep counting, ok?"
he nods without missing a beat. "fiffy-seben, fiffy-eight, fiffy--" SNORT "--nine..."
this kid has a lot of phlegm.
back to the meeting. we cover some ground. mostly jeremy talking on and on about how someone took his coffee today at work and gave it to someone else.
oh boo hoo. i resist the urge to one-up him for a moment, but then point out that last year, bernard gave my whole lunch to dallas, who ate it, while i starved.
i get more sympathy than jeremy. great. i love sympathy.
there's a knock at the door.
"where are you at, coen?"
"one-hunnerd and fthiry-fthree, one-hunnerd and frthiry-fo..."
anyways.
the point is, coen will count to 1000 if you ask him. anytime, anywhere, and i think that would make for a real nifty babysitting gig.
at 5 minutes per 100 numbers, that's 50 minutes of not really having to do anything.
and when he's done?
"coen, count to 2000."
what a great kid.
5 comments:
ha ha... you totally captured Coen and I can completely hear him counting like that! I love that kid! Last night he drew me a picture in which he was boxing a guy who was twice his size and the sun was angry because Coen was winning, but the moon was happy, because the moon was cheering for him. :)
Also, Jeremy can be whiny, eh? ha ha.
so i just discovered your music player on here and wanted to say how much i love and appreciate you SO much! you know just how inept i am at finding good music and i always relied on you for new and good things to listen to and now i can find them easily whenever i'm on the interweb :) i didn't know how to just comment on your blog in general which is why this is here. so.. this is kinda long. but i'm listening to dirty town and smiling. MWUAH!
They stood watching the crane. I hope it swells terribly. They came to a clearing. But suppose I slipped up? But what can you do when you deal with people? I cant help what people think—if they think at all! I am one of the dollarchasers, Dr. Id like to tell you just one story.
His Sunday School teacher thanks you tremendously for that tip!! :) And I'm very jealous of Justine's picture. My last picture from Coen was of a guy covered in green poison, and the one before that was a shepherd covered in blood b/c he was attacked while rescuing his sheep!
Ya know Jen, that Shepherd picture could serve as a pretty deep analogy... You don't think Coen was going for that, do you? ;)
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