My 9 year old grandson, Evan, loves being the subject of my “For the LOVE of Kids” column. He loves when I interview him and send him links to the columns when they are posted on the site. He enjoys the pictures and slide shows, and laughs when he hears his quotes I use in the columns. Evan is probably one of Patch’s youngest fans!

Evan especially looks forward to our silly interview sessions which come as a result of our real interviews. This is when I do funny accents and ask him silly questions which he matches, and often surpasses, with even sillier accents and even sillier answers.

One day Evan and I were in line at a food store and the woman in front of us looked our way. He turned to me with a smile and whispered, “I think she recognizes us from our columns … no, really she does … we’re famous!”

On our last visit Evan told me he wanted to be a cartoonist. It is his 9^th birthday this week and I decided to put together a basket of cartooning goodies.  I included a package of his favorite ink pens to draw his cartoon characters, in blue, black, red, gold and silver. I also included a book on how to cartoon, a small spiral book with blank pages to carry with him to use whenever he has an idea, and some books filled with his favorite comic strips: Snoopy, Pearls Before Swine and Calvin and Hobbs.

It has been wonderful to chronicle our times together in these columns. I hope you are enjoying the funny, poignant and clever things Evan says as much as I do. It is fun to witness the diverse topics of conversations from visit to visit. I enjoy taking his lead and leaving the space for him to create the topic.

Now that it is the holiday season we will be spending even more time with our little loved ones, both near and far. I would love to hear from my readers about the little people in their lives and the funny, poignant and clever things they say. You are welcome to post comments after this column or email me directly. I look forward to hearing from you!

Until next Wednesday, remember it's all “for the love of kids…”  

And, Happy Birthday to my famous grandson, Evan!         

In joy, Marilyn