It was amazing how much kids appreciated the small things and how once the immediate troubles were gone that they were able to push past all of it. It was not only encouraging and uplifting to Gabriel, it also gave him something to inspire to. Noah had far less to worry about than Gabriel did, but Gabriel needed to learn not to dwell upon the negative aspects of his life like he had been. He needed to appreciate what he had, what was going right, and push all of the rest of it to the side until it became an immediate issue again.
Plucking the waffles out of the iron, Gabriel set them out on the plate, pouring a generous amount of syrup onto them before picking up the stick of butter and carrying both it and the plate over to the table, Gabriel sat the plate in front of Noah, placing the stick of butter within reach. "Not too much of that, all right?" Gabriel said, nodding to the butter with a slight smile. He might not have been sure exactly what he was supposed to do about 'butter on the side', but he expected that this way, it would look not like that he was groping for what in the world that meant but that he was trusting Noah to actually judge for himself how much was enough.
At least, that was the appearance that he was hoping for. "Of course," Gabriel said was he walked back over to the counter to fix the rest of the batter of himself. "And we'll see about Uncle Peter. He hasn't been feeling well the last few days. But we'll see whether or not he's up to it."