A brush with fame

I picked up the boys from daycare as usual this afternoon.  As we left, I pressed the button to open the automatic door.  Amiri asked to be lifted up to push the button, but I told him no, that the button was only for grownups.  'When will I be a grownup?' he asked.

As we left the building I explained to him.  'Grownups are over 18 years old.  So when you turn 18, you will be a grownup.  Now you're three.  So you have 15 years to go.'

A man who was also leaving daycare overheard us.  He stopped, looked at us pointedly, and asked, 'Is your son's name Amiri?'

I was a bit startled because I didn't recognise him as one of the other parents, but said yes, and asked how he knew.  He told me that his wife works in the front office at the daycare, and Amiri is famous there.  Everyone knows Amiri's name because he's unusually polite, and helpful, and smart.  He said that he and his wife had been talking about Amiri just the other day at home, after our little boy had been paraded around the office by his teacher who wanted to show him off.  Of course, he thoroughly charmed the man's wife and they'd theorized that Amiri's parents must talk to him like a little adult in order to make such a precocious little fellow.  And when he overheard my matter-of-fact explanation, and saw a 3-year old boy with curls, he put two and two together.

I told him he'd just made my day.  My mama's heart was bursting with pride!