Beautiful Ladies

It seems that our youngest son has developed a bit of a thing for Asian ladies since we moved to Singapore. Actually he's always been a ladies man, charming them with his smile from a young age and preferring to snuggle up to a (preferably well-endowed) bosom rather than tag along with the guys.

The delight on his face when he arrived at pre-school four days a week was a picture; ignoring the blonde Dutch staff he would rush up to Sarah, his beloved Singaporean teacher, and give her a big cuddle. Every single day without fail he would tell her that something about her was beautiful; from "you've got beautiful toe nails today" to "you've got beautiful hair". During our weekly visits to the large Maplewoods condominium for Niels swimming lessons he would home in on a group of Philippino maids clustered around the pool and plop himself in the middle, which would without fail dissolve into giggles and he would bathe in the glow of admiration and head pats his cubby blonde smiling face would generate.

Our wonderful babysitter Fe has become known as "my Fe", the staff at our holiday villa in Bali were wrapped around his pinky within 24 hours, and even the Asian Mums of some of his class mates are the target of his ample affections. However his all-time favourite Asian Ladies would have to be the air hostesses on board the Singapore Airlines planes. Of course they are lovely, with their long traditional batik dresses and slim figures, perfect make up and shiny black hair. To Carl, they are perfection personified and on our recent trip to New Zealand it was all he could do to remain sitting until the 'fasten seat belt' sign was turned off before he scooted out of his chair, yelling over his shoulder "I'm going to talk to the beautiful ladies" as he disappeared in the direction of the pantry. Fifteen minutes later he reappeared with pink cheeks and a handful of cookies. Half an hour later this was repeated, and so the flight progressed. On one occassion he reappeared just moments after he'd left; when I asked him why he replied dismissively "there's only guys back there now" before focusing his attention on the tv screen. As dinner was served one particularly pretty hostess gave him a big wink and a grin - Carl turned to me and whispered dramatically "that's the one I kissed".

Somehow I don't think it's just cookies he's after.