add this to the list of things i never thought i’d hear myself say
“Maybe other people want to hug their own cheese.”
OK, so, we took advantage of a break in the rain and walked to the grocery store. The Little Guy pushed the cart, impressing and amusing Miss Baby by running and coasting on the back of the it. At one point, the Little Guy became inexplicably overcome with affection for cheese, and was picking up bricks and hugging them. Really.
This is the point where I had to balance things out. Is this harming him? No. Is it harming others? No; there is no direct contact between the child and the cheese, so future cheese consumers will be unaffected by his spontaneous overflow of emotion. Is it wierd? Well, yeah, but that didn’t seem like reason enough to forbid it, frankly. I did rather try to control it; the sentence above is one of my efforts to move him along. So the next thing I said was, “OK, you can hug one more cheese, and then we have to go.” He did, and we did.
What can I say? The kid loves cheese.