October 16, 2002 - Wednesday
"Dad, I love that shirt."
Harry said that to me tonight at dinner. I was wearing nothing more than a nondescript T-shirt with a erstwhile company logo on the left breast. But, it was shortly after I started turning up the pressure a bit for him to eat more of the dinner instead of fooling around. That's unfortunately a common refrain on my part, done in a variety of tones depending on the night, my mood, Harry's behavior, and the general tenor of dinner that far. However, "Dad, I love that shirt" is not a common phrase for Harry. Yes, he has started to use the word "love" to express predilection or preference, but there was nothing about my white T-shirt that genuinely would have caught Harry's fancy. I suspect Harry was just using a phrase he heard at daycare. It's easy enough to imagine his teacher freely showering the kids with such positive comments. Yet, this was clearly targeted by Harry to change the subject. That's not particularly new either, but it is intriguing to think that he might have had the forethought to use a disarming compliment rather than some more benign comment to do it. It's probably just a coincidence.


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