Little man’s handshake

Every time Tucker goes to the ranch, he gets so much dirt all over him, he starts looking like a little spotted leopard or something. It’s very precious and very icky all at the same time. He also usually ends up with soaking wet shoes within two minutes of being let outdoors.
The other day he had a cold, so I instructed grandpa “Don’t let him swim in the stream.”
It wasn’t but a few minutes later that dad smiled at me and said “He didn’t go swimming. He just fell in.”
He is SUCH a boy….as everyone says when they meet him. He will repeat a lot of things we try to teach him, except the one phrase I keep begging him to say so much–“I love you.”
When I tried to teach him to say it yesterday, he kept looking up at me with such sweet eyes, acted like he was paying close attention and was going to say it. But what came out instead was “Brroom, Brroom” like a car revving it’s engine, and “pow, pow” his idea of dove hunting. It will certainly be a sweet day when his chubby little face looks up at me and utters those three little words. Even if it’s “Brroom! Brroom! I love you!”
Lately, his new trick is that he’s learned to shake hands with every man he meets. He took me by surprise when he reached up and shook the hand of the horse Ferrier this weekend instead of waving “bye bye”, and ever since then, that’s how he has started greeting people. It’s so adorable. He sticks out his little tiny hand when he walks up to someone, and they hardly know what to do. But when they reach down to shake his hand you can tell he is awfully proud of it.
He is such a boy….or maybe I should say such a little man. So if you see a tiny little boy with soaking wet shoes and dirt all over his face reach his hand up to you….you know what to do.