He is a one year old teenager.

I was at my hair appointment, and Wally Ben came with. My sister-in-law LizE’s friend Stephanie (there are really only two people involved in that phrase, but it sounds like a lot more, doesn’t it?)—anyway, she cuts my hair. Wally Ben was playing on the ground and found a hand broom Stephanie uses to scoop up the hair. Stephanie nicely took it away and set it on the counter. And here’s where it got interesting. He eyed her. He gave her a stare. And I could see his wheels turning. I realized that I know exactly how he would have reacted if it were me who took the broom away. He would have looked at me and yelled at the top of his lungs. He would have jumped up and down a little. His face would have gotten red, and there may have been tears. But with Stephanie, he decided he wouldn’t. I watched him decide.

In a way, I’m glad, since he’s polite enough to realize that it’s not okay to yell at people he doesn’t know that well. But, of course, there’s also the flip side: he knows it’s bad, but he still goes ahead and does it to me. I’m being “but mom”ed by my one year old. And so it begins.