Loinfruit

Over the years I have referred to my children as many things: offspring, spawn, fru-its of the dev-il...but the most recent, and current favorite, was suggested by one of the little darlings themselves while we were on vacation.

We were playing a game--dominoes, I think--and I made a move that was disadvantageous to Savannah. She exclaimed with dismay, "How could you do that to the fruit of your loins?!" With mock-shame, I answered, "Awwww...I don't know how I could do that to my little loinfruit." The whole group erupted into laughter, with the episode culminating in Savannah deeming me her lointree.

Needless to say, talk of loins is not the most desirable conversation to have with your parents, grandparents and other assorted extended family around. However, such situations tend to lend themselves to those precious things that come out of the mouths of babes. My girlfriend, Terri, shared a story that one of her loinfruit starred in over the weekend. They always have a family dinner on Sunday nite with her husband's large family in attendance. Last Sunday nite the brothers got into a discussion about hair--it started with hairy chests and evolved (or should I say de-volved?) to hairy asses.

As the brothers compared their relative states of hairiness, one in particular was insisting that he did not have a hairy ass. It was late and Terri's soon-to-be 7-year-old son looked up at his scruffy uncle, and in all seriousness said, "You do have a hairy ass...on your face."

The wonderfully awful statements and beautifully innocent observations that are spoken by our loinfruit paint the world for us in colors we never would have chosen, from a perspective we may never see without them. I have saved scraps of phrases and comments from my children over the years, and I hope that I never lose the irrepresible smile and little tug on my heart that I feel when I read and remember them.