an afternoon with Luke

I asked Luke to clean up the family room today, and he actually DID IT!! I was so surprised that he had done what I asked the first time I asked that I told him I'd take him out for ice cream. He also had a dollar in his wallet so went searching for something that only cost a dollar and was something worth spending his only dollar. Luke can be a little difficult sometimes, but sometimes he is a perfect angel -- like this afternoon. While we were driving, I asked him what his favorite part of being alive is. His answer surprised me -- "being with you, Mom." No one disciplines him as much as I do; no one gets as angry at him as I do; but I guess no one accepts, loves, and encourages him as much as I do, either. Or maybe he just wanted me to buy him more stuff :-) I choose to not believe that, though, because I didn't buy him anything else and he was still well-behaved and happy to just be spending time together. He even tried to help me pick out some lipstick without complaining. We stopped at a stoplight behind a city bus, and Luke was noticing all the pictures on the back. One of the pictures was a handprint, but he called it a "hand-paw-print." That made me chuckle!