Dandle Obsession

It's funny to watch your kid develop his own favourite things. Nathan's current favourite thing is a candle.

December is a popular birthday month in our family and he's getting to realize what candles are for. You light them for a minute, then blow them out.

"Why, oh why, does mommy light them and I can't blow them out?", he thinks.

I have a lot of different types of candles in my house (thanks to PartyLite and Junk Week). Tealights, votives, tapered, fancy Christmas candles galore. I thought that the only ones Nate would think were candles, are the ones that look like birthday candles. But nope. He even knows it's a candle, even if it's concealed by a lampshade. Smart boy.

He's always running up to us, putting his arms up in the air for us to pick him up (one of the cutest things ever). Then when we've picked him up, he yells, "DANDLE! BLOW".

So we have to take him over to the "dandle" he's pointing at. We hold it in front of him. He smells it, pretends to blow it out, and laughs. Then he points to the next nearest dandle.

This cycle repeats until all the dandles in the room have been "blown" out.

I put him down. He immediately puts his hands up, saying "DANDLE!! DANDLE!!!".

This playtime inevitably ends in a whine, cry or even tantrum, because we have never been able to play this game as long as he wants to.

He even points out dandles in other people's houses. And you know those big outdoor plastic red and yellow dandles that people add to their Christmas display? He finds them all.

His love for candles makes me think that he's either going to turn out to be a really sweet husband who knows the value in little luxuries, or he'll be a pyro. We'll have to wait and see.