Kiddom

The boy had just finished dinner and was in the process of pouring himself a glass of milk. He poured it well past the point of full and paused.

Then, he began a process of dribbling a little more milk into the glass, then pausing, and dribbling some more in. He was completely focused on his task and in this way, slowly brought the level of the milk up to the edge of the glass.

But he still wasn’t done. Once he had the milk close, he squatted down and eyed the level of milk compared to the edge of the glass. Not satisfied with the current circumstances, he dribbled more milk into the glass. He repeated this process several times before he was satisfied.

It wasn’t until then that he finally looked over at me. It was almost like he had only just realized I was there, watching. He gave me a goofy grin and shrugged his shoulders and kind of half-pointed at the glass. I didn’t say anything, although I did smirk. Then, he leaned over the glass and attempted to slurp some milk out of the glass.

And promptly dribbled the milk down his chin and onto the counter.

I remained silent in my spot. He rolled his eyes over to look at me, his head frozen over the glass. He had a “hand in the cookie” jar kind of face, then gave a small laugh. He wiped his chin with a dish towel and then turned to the cabinet and began rooting around. He pulled out a plastic straw.

After inspecting the straw for … something … and deeming it worthy, he took it in his mouth and hovered it over the glass. To accomplish this feat, he braced himself with both hands on the edge of the counter, stood up on his toes, then craned his neck out. Once in position, he slowly lowered the straw down until it just touched the top of the milk. Then he started slurping. He took the level down enough so that he could safely move the glass without further spillage and then cleaned up the spilt milk.

Having cleaned things up, he returned to the straw and drew a length of milk out, then pulled the straw out of the glass, put his finger on the end and withdrew it from his mouth. The milk remained suspended in the straw. He stood there, shaking the straw above his glass of milk trying to see if anything would come out of the straw. At some point his finger must have slipped and the milk came pouring out. Half of it went on the counter, the other half into the glass.

He looked over at me immediately. His hand with the straw remained hovering over the glass, frozen where the straw had emptied. He smiled again. A big teethy, wide-eyed cartoon grin and threw in an “Aw shucks” shrug. I remained silent, a smirk still on my face.

Returning his attention to the glass, he dropped the straw into the milk mechanically- simply releasing it from his fingers while his hand remained where it had been. He remained frozen like that for a moment, staring at the glass, hand hovering over the it, unmoving. He considered things for another second or two after it plopped into the milk, then he grabbed the dish towel and wiped up the spilt milk.

Apparently deciding the game was done, he took the milk and sucked it down through the straw in three gulps. Then, he placed the glass and straw in the sink, and headed off for the next thing.

Who knew a glass of milk could provide such amusement?