the shiny guy always worries

My neighbor across the hall is a very nice girl. I just learned that she is a psych major and so far enjoying her first year in college. That's about as much as I know about her. Oh, and the fact that she has THE CUTEST FOUR YR OLD BROTHER IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD.

"Oh no! A vampire!!" -Tristan

His name is Tristan, he has Spider-man Velcro shoes and a pretty cool umbrella: "not just any umbrella...it's a Spongebob one! It's yellow and everything!" And because my roommate and I are basically 10 years old when it comes to our interests (Star Wars, Harry Potter and superheroes), and Marca has decorated our bookshelf and TV stand with dozens of action figures, he seems to really enjoy visiting us.

On move-in weekend, while his parents were unpacking and his sister was organizing, he jet-packed over to our room and started play time.

Of course it didn't start so easy. He didn't just storm into our room demanding toys; he's too polite for that. He just leaned on our doorway for a few minutes, talking to Marca, Jenna and me about our rain boots. I could tell he was going stir crazy with the move-in effort and I wanted to offer him the chance to play with Boba Fett and Hagrid, but everything I said to him came out wrong: "Hey, do you want a cookie?" "We have toys!" and Jenna even asked "Where do you live?"

Some things you just can't say to a 4 yr old without sounding like a molester in an ice cream van.

After move-in day I thought surely I won't see him again until move-out. And I was sad. But today he came to visit his sister. And who's room did he come to first? The FUN room.

The best thing about these play dates is that he has no idea who any of the characters are that he is playing with. When he first saw Darth Vader (who protects our television), he swooped him down onto Remus Lupin and said "Oh no! A vampire!" I later found out from his mother that he has never seen or heard of Star Wars. Which seems like neglect, if you ask me.