More than likely, everyone has a few dozen tales to tell about their familys’ gatherings. I’ll save you the blow-by-blow details of mine and limit my stories to two–both centered around the second youngest grandchild in attendance, my great niece. Anna’s at that charming age of four, old enough to kinda know what’s going on, young enough to be gullible.

We had Thanksgiving at my bro-and sis-in law’s house. Diana’s neighbor, Kelly, is her best friend, and she and her husband, Chris (Kiss, according to Anna), joined us for Thanksgiving. For the life of her, Anna couldn’t do what Chris could do–she tried and tried, but it never worked for her.

Chris would bop himself on the back of the head, cough into his hand, and spit out his front teeth.

Poor Anna. She spent so much time boppin’ her little head. Never could figure out what she was doing wrong.

Like many girls her age, she’s a fairy princess, and she demands the admiration of all around her. As things were settling out, and there were fewer of us occupying Diana’s house, little Anna would present her one-girl parade, once with all her Mardi-Gras beads, and again with her Princess Whoever outfit. When she combined the two, the beads hung on something and she couldn’t get them unhung. Very distressing.

Now, before I go on with Princess Anna and her beaded dilemma, I gotta tell you about Bosco.

Bosco is a big-eyed Boston Terrier, a little on the shy side, but an affection seeker just the same. He’s got a butt-wiggle walk that’s just as cute as it can get, considering his tail is just a nubbin. He’ll duck his head a bit in both fear and humility when you stretch your hand to pet him, and his whole body will tremble while he’s getting stroked, until he gets used to you and figures you’re not a bad sort after all.

Bosco’s got a squeaky toy–a little eight-legged spider that he carries by its big green body. That toy has a special purpose:

While Princess Anna was crying to her mother and trying to get her beads untangled, Bosco fetched his spider, crept up behind her, and poked her right in the butt with the toy.

SQUEE-squee! SQUEE-squee!

The look on that dog’s face–I swear, he was grinning. He knew precisely what he was doing.