"For Serious."

I fell in love with Dec across the checkerboard this afternoon.

It wouldn't have happened if he didn't come bounding down the staircase

asking in his sweet little boy voice if I would play a game with him.

When I agreed, he had the checkers set up in an instant.

I sat down and we played. I don't really want to call him a cheater - but really,

the kid cheats at every chance he gets. One of his double jumps today was so, so

creative and so, so incredibly illegal, that I had to call the Hubs in to witness it.

Later on in the game, I tried to jump one of Dec's checkers and he insisted that it

wasn't in the box that I'd jumped.

His quote (and yes, I wrote it down the minute he said it, out of mad-mother-fear that I'd forget it):

"Mommy, my checker was in the middle of those two boxes. For serious."

As if, having your checker reside in the middle of two boxes, actually means that you can

choose to have said checker jumped or not jumped by your opponent.

As if?

For serious.

When a missing toothed AND adorable freckly faced 6-year old smiles at me with that, "I'm just so happy to be playing a game with you on this snowy and cold afternoon" heart warming grin....

Maybe sitting on the line of neither here nor there (neither boxed in, or out), does count for something.

Something VERY special.

Thank you my incredibly awesome Dec, for kicking my butt at checkers this afternoon.

I love you so, so, so much.

For serious.