The Greeting

Today I witnessed the nicest greeting between relatives that I've seen in a while. A mom was stopping by the office to visit her son at his first job out of college. She came in all smiles, looking forward to seeing him, and when he was paged to come to the front desk he said, "woo-hoo!!" obviously excited in kind. They hugged each other warmly and she said, "Hi pumpkin!" With obvious pride he proceeded to show her around the office where he worked. I thought it was so nice. It made me wonder, how did they develop such a natural, unself-conscious, loving relationship? What's their secret, that other moms (pecking away with sad questions trying to be included in their sons' lives) and sons (slouched down in their seats, shrugging or monosyllabic) have somehow missed out on? When I grow up and have children and they grow up, I want us to have a loving and warm relationship like that. I want to greet them with "pumpkin" and have them not be embarrassed.

I'm like that with my parents, pretty much. Perhaps slightly less effusive, but only because I see them so often. I often visit on the weekends, and meet one or the other for lunch or a movie during the week. But I'm still not sure what the secret is. I would chalk my relationship with my parents up to them being just really nice, wonderful people. But I don't know how to be that nice and wonderful in my kids' eyes, or indeed in anyone's.