This One is for The Peanut

Today is one of those days when I can still remember the second I laid eyes on my good friend's beautiful adopted son, to whom we affectionately refer as the Peanut. Mostly I can remember it because at Ringlet’s karate tournament yesterday, there was this itty, bitty, teeny, tiny, wee itsy bitsy little brown boy-critter in a white uniform way too big for his little body, with a white belt wrapped around his waist about 3 times about to stand up in front of a couple of big scary black belt judges and perform his little kata and that kid looked just like the Peanut did way back when. I chit you not, this kid couldn’t have been more than 10 inches tall. OK, maybe a little more than that, but by God not much.

He got up there and with eyes about as big as saucers, he stood before the judges and whispered what information he could remember from Clarence, his ENORMOUS instructor (who is actually quite a teddy bear if you can get past the wicked-scary front he likes to present) and started. When the time came for him to do his little karate screams at various parts of his kata, he would pause, think for a second and then turn to the judges, grit his teeth and growl at them.

I was almost wetting myself from trying not to laugh.

And when this little adorable thing got done and bowed, the whole crowd stood up and clapped, whistled and cheered louder than they had all day long.


And THAT’s what made him cry.