Nature or Nurture? My Son, the Coquette

At the tender age of about 4 months, Tommy started exhibiting Fear of Strangers. Initially, I was mortified. Sure, I want my kids to be who they are and everything like that, but I have to admit that I really want Tommy to be friendly and a great conversationalist with others. (Does that make me a bad mom?)

Anyway, as you might surmise, I feared Tommy's shyness doomed him to a fate of eternal shyness. To counter this, I'd tickle him when he met strangers, so he'd smile* and they'd think, "Wow, what an outgoing boy."

I'm not sure if it was nature or nurture, but Tommy the Introverted has been outed. That is, he's now an Extrovert. While shopping at an unnamed outlet mall today, I noted my son flirting with no less than 20 women. He's pretty coy about it, actually: he snuggles his chin and face into me as if to FEIGN shyness, but then he pops out his head with the most adorably flirtatious grin.

And the grin keeps coming.

Tommy is visibly upset when we are forced to move on to a new store, as it means diverting eye contact from his ladies.

I think I've created a monster.

*Some might read this and misconstrue it as a manipulative effort to force personality traits upon my son. It was.