The weekend, part 3

At the knitting market, G was snacking, so I kept him pretty far from any yarn. (He was in the stroller.) He was warned not to touch yarn, but I knew his impulse control, so I thought I'd stay on the safe side. In general, he was in the aisle but near me (with GameBoy).

I was looking at some yarn in a booth and a woman leaned over and asked if she could give G candy. It was just after lunch but I didn't want him to have too much, so I said she could offer something little. "A Tootsie Roll? Or a Kiss?" she asked. "Either one--he'll tell you what he wants," I said. She leaned over and offered, and he accepted one of them. Just after that, we were leaving and he handed the candy back to her and said, "I don't want this." I said, "Say, 'no, thank you'," and he did.

At another booth, I got into a discussion with a gal about her methods for dying her self-striping yarn and G was facing down the aisle and a little bit farther, nearly in front of the next booth. I had bought him a hot dog and put ketchup on it, so I wanted to make darn sure the ketchup didn't get anywhere near the yarn.

The next thing I know, I'm hearing over the loudspeaker: "Attention. There is a blond boy in a stroller in the aisle with a hot dog. His mother is NOWHERE IN SIGHT. Can someone please claim him?" Apparently, he had called out to me and I hadn't heard him (he wasn't far, but it was loud in there). Oops!

After the market closed, we were heading toward the outer doors, and I spotted several round tables with chairs for folks to drink coffee and relax (and knit). I sat down and pulled out my knitting. G brought up the candy thing. "Do you know why I gave back that candy?" "No, why?" "Because I didn't know her. You said that if I don't know someone, I shouldn't take candy from them."

This was from an incident at our library from months back. We were at the checkout machine and an older man shuffled by. He leaned over and said to G, "Have you been a good boy?" and tossed a wrapped green candy on the desk, and continued on. I snatched it up and whispered in G's ear, "We are NOT keeping this candy. We don't KNOW him." And he still remembered that incident. Wow. (I think he also didn't know I had talked to the woman and OK'd it. It was from a huge bowl of candy and I figured if it had been tampered with, that would have come out already.)

That kid has an impressive memory. But the attention span of a gnat, I tell you.