Putting the Charm in Charm City

If a strange woman with glasses walks up to you in the greater Cockeysville-Hunt Valley corridor and shouts “HI-yuh!” or departs your company by hollering and waving “buh-BYE!” chances are that strange woman was me.

My 2-year-old son Isaac is waging a one-boy charm offensive these days, and I’m finding it rather infectious. Just as he was slow to start walking, the little man has been slow to start talking. But as he picks up more words and phrases, he is gleefully holding fast to his old standbys and always, always bellows his cheery versions of hello and goodbye. If you had seen and heard him, trust me, you would agree that this behavior is pretty comical and not just something appreciated by those nearest and dearest to him.

As the first to leave our house in the morning during the week – my husband is on daycare drop-off duty and he and the kids leave a few minutes after me – I’m a daily target of the loud and repetitive goodbyes. Usually Ike and Lucy are still at the table finishing breakfast, and through mouthfuls of Cheerios or toast, Ike will always yell “buh-BYE” to me over and over again as I wave back and tell him a I love him and walk out the front door. I can still hear him after I’ve taken several steps outside toward my car. You can set your watch by his goodbyes, unless of course I’m running late or he’s engrossed in whatever is happening on “Arthur” on PBS Kids. But mostly they are a standard part of our day. I’ve even heard him calling out a buh-BYE to one of his friends a daycare; I was halfway across the building from him at the time.

Isaac is so loud and silly about these greetings that whenever someone says hi to me, I think about how he says it and I start to laugh. As a result, I believe that I have inadvertently started to yell my alohas as well, catching my unsuspecting targets off-guard. It’s spreading throughout our family – my father-in-law isn’t known for performing impressions, but I know that he has borrowed Isaac’s “HI!” at least once to surprise my mother-in-law as she walked in the door one night this week.

I guess you could call it the trickle-down theory of charm. Or maybe it’s trickling up because Ike is pretty short. Anyway, if you find yourself being overtly civil and loving it, you probably have my son to thank.

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