Making mama happy is very easy. Simply open my mouth to whatever she offers me. At breakfast, lunch, dinner. All the same. Part my cherry lips, accept the bits on the wooden spoon, clamp them fast in my mouth, and smile – that will undoubtedly make her smile, too – until I can’t keep them any longer, and I eventually have to heave. Though sometimes, even cramming those foods in my mouth is awfully hard, especially when mama starts to mix ground meat with cooked, mashed egg yolks without adding any salt, sugar, or seasoning in them. I will gag the instant the hodgepodge touches my tongue, and mama will not smile anymore.

“Frodo…”

She will frown, and I will quickly swallow the food.

“Coo, coo…” I try to cheer her up.

And mama will smile again.

Snowman

“Get inside, Frodo. It’s lunch time already. You cannot forget it like you did elevenses just now. You can get ill.” Mama took Frodo, who was crawling around the lower part of a snowman standing erect at the chalk-white backyard.

The wee hobbit lad of five winters cackled in glee, but then yelped in dismay realizing what his mama was doing.

“Down, down!” he shrieked and squirmed in his mother’s arms. But she was much stronger and she was determined to get him inside.

“No! Mama…” Frodo whined. “Look.” He then pointed a finger toward the snowman. “Smile.”

“Of course it's smiling, Frodo. It's smiling because he knows you’re a good boy who…” Mama was busy coaxing the near-sulking lad when she turned around and halted, her mouth gaping wide.

It must be the bright light of the sun that had been playing tricks with her eyes, because the snowman’s mouth did seem to curve up and look exactly like a smile!