Niko

People sometimes call Niko "Eric Jr.", and when I look at him I do see myself as a kid.  He (usually) wakes up so happy, and says things like "The world is full of fun!" or something silly and happy that makes me smile.

This weekend up in Maine he went through the wringer.  First he had a little bloody nose, which really doesn't faze him anymore, and doesn't usually require any parental intervention.  Then the kids all came running out to the deck saying he had blood on his face, which we immediately thought was a reprise of the bloody nose.  Then he walked out on the deck and looked like something from an old fashioned pro wrestling match.  Blood was POURING down his face and it turns out while they were in the tent in the girls room, Nicholas Duarte hit him in the forehead with a MagLite.  One butterfly bandage later, he has a matching Harry Potter scar to the one he got from the bed when he was younger.  Mosquitoes love him and he ends up looking like a pincushion with all his bites.  Then as the kids are tromping around in the woods, he comes out and says "Daddy I got a scratch", which is about 7 inches long and bleeding.  Of course I forget this when I sunscreen hm up at the lake later, and he starts screaming like a banshee (how do they scream, anyway?)

Anyway, I remember when I was little and I would hold my Dad's hand or how he would muss up my hair and call me 'Babuchka" or "Tiger", and being with Niko at this stage of his life really takes me back to that time of my childhood.