Nathan

Nathan is a rather precocious four-year-old who lives on the other side of the house with his parents. Since his parents both work, my wife Lucy is in babysitting charge of Nathan and two-year-old Nolan part of the day, five or six days a week. You can imagine that they are a handful, especially since Lucy is on a wheelchair ever since her stroke in May 2004. Still, she bravely carries on the duties of seeing to their welfare. Since I'm on disability I am around quite often to help out.

One day Lucy told me that Nathan wouldn't listen to her and locked the door on his side of the house. I went to the outside of the house and knocked on the door. Nathan was sitting on the sofa chair watching television. He turned around, saw who it was and resumed watching television. "Nathan", I called. "If you don't open this door, I won't let you play games on the computer anymore." That did it. He meekly unlocked the door and I led him over to our side of the house, and Lucy put him on Time Out.

A few days later I was busy typing a letter. Nathan was trying to get onto my lap and I kept pushing him away. Finally he said, "Wes, if you don't let me play on the computer, I won't give you any candy."

"Do you have any candy?"

"Uh-huh."

"May I have some?"

"Oh, OK, I'll get some." He scampered off to the kitchen. From the kitchen I heard a muffled argument between Nathan and Lucy but I could guess what they were arguing about. Suddenly Nathan started crying. Needless to say, I didn't get any candy.

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Another time Lucy was busy quilting. She had a pair of her glasses on the quilt and Nathan brought a stool and stood by Lucy, and started playing with the glasses. Lucy intervened. "Nathan, leave those glasses alone."

"But I can't quilt without my glasses," he replied.

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Just recently, as I was writing in my little basement office, Nathan came in with a toy and covered it with a handkerchief. "Wes, guess what this is," and for the next several minutes I played a guessing game with each toy he brought in. Soon the floor was covered with them. When I later asked him to put them back, he refused, as he usually does. I took my foot and crutch and swept them just outside the door and to the side. Over the few days I occasionally picked up a toy to put it away but when his Dad came to talk to me, I told him about the game we played and Nathan's refusal to put the toys away. "I'll take care of it," he said.

A few minutes later I heard footsteps bouncing down the steps which sounded like Nathan. There was silence for awhile with an occasional rattling noise, and then my office door slowly opened. From my vantage point I couldn't see much and no one appeared, but the door was still moving a little. Then from around the corner out of sight came a plaintive voice, "Sorry." I looked and found that the toys were gone. I finally realized what happened. "That's OK," I said, "Thank you," as Nathan trudged back upstairs. Later I found that his Dad asked if he apologized, "Yes," he replied.

Sweet kid...sometimes.