Nicholas loves minions. It’s an “its Christmas morning & Santa came & he brought me a hippopotamus!” kind of love.

We don’t watch much TV in our house. Not because I have some soapbox about how bad TV is for kiddos that I stand on.  We don’t watch much because well,  Nicholas isn’t all that interested in it. He knows how to turn it on & off & can even pull up Netflix but usually he  will watch it for 5-10 minutes & then get up & wander off to some new adventure. But, not with the minions. The sound of the minions singing the Universal theme song sends him into full blown dancing mode.

And minions (or any cameo a minion might make in a movie) cause Nicholas to freeze where he is & just watch in amazement.

If you know anything about the minions franchise (I know more than I ever thought I would need to know), there are lots of them. Each of them has a name & a backstory & their own little personality. They all have 1 goal at the end of the day though: to serve their master in whatever way He needs. Sometimes the minions clean the house, sometimes they babysit, sometimes they make “super cool spy weapons”. In any way they can, they serve. And they do so with happy hearts.

Nicholas has a favorite minion: Bob. When he sees Bob on screen & he squeals “bob! bob mama!”. (Bob is also the minion plush toy he is watching the movie with in the video above).

A bit on Bob – Bob is short for Robert. He is the only minion with 2 colored eyes – known medically as hetereochromia. (Its a tribute to rocker David Bowie – the creators of the minions who were obviously big fans.) He is the shortest minion of the whole tribe. Bob is a kind-hearted minion.  He has a child’s point of view of the world – never counting anyone out & always doing something out of love for someone else.

In one of the Despicable Me movies he is one of the minions who, when a little girl’s stuffed unicorn is disintegrated, fashions one out of a baby bottle brush & some googly eyes. He delivers it with the price tag still on it (how very Minnie Pearl of him). And in another movie, when the villain is punished for her ways, he stops to give her a special gift he had just received since he knows it will bring her a bit of joy in a time when she has just lost the battle.

He never gives up on people. He puts their happiness ahead of his own. He lives to serve. He needs guidance from his fellow minions sometimes as his innocence can get in his own way. But he always has good reasons for stumbling while trying to help. If only we could all say we always had good intentions as adults – sometimes its not the case.

I guess I’m writing this here so, one day, when Nicholas is either a passive aggressive teen who knows everything & I know nothing (I hear these teens exist – I was NEVER EVER one of them – just take my word on this – definitely don’t ask my mother) or when he is struggling with life in general he can think back & remember the mantra “be like bob.”. Be kind-hearted, seek to spread happiness, & serve others. Especially when they don’t deserve it. So, in short – be like bob. Even when others fail you, be like bob.