“Ow…that really hurts!” David said as he looked up at me with green gray puppy dog eyes. He was snuggled down in my lap, wrapped in his superman blanket.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Well, part of my nail came off.”  He showed me the part.  Nearly one quarter of the upper right quadrant of the nail belonged to David’s index finger was gone.

“Good grief, what did you do?”

“Well, the way that I cracked the nail was, I tried to sharpen it.  When that happened, I just ripped the rest of nail off.”

“You sharpened it with a pencil sharpener?”

“Yeah.”

“Don’t do that again.”

Last week, I caught David making coffee after Vespers at church.  He had watched me do it the Sunday previous and figured he knew what to do and, you know, someone might need coffee so he might as well make some.   The scary part is that we have one of those commercial coffee makers with heating elements on the top and the brewing portion on the bottom.  Somehow, David had managed to hoist one pot, full of freshly made steaming hot coffee, to one of the top burners and was preparing to make a second pot when I caught him.  I had been briefly catching up with our priest in the sacristy while he was up to these antics.  Coffee making sons just weren’t on my radar that night.

The boy’s got moxie…of course he is banned from further coffee making expeditions.

Ana now has an email address.  She is also on a mission to decorate the world, starting with my office at work.  Since her first, and only, visit to my office, Ana has painted 8 masterpieces for my walls.  Today’s project was a painting for Granddaddy.  I’m not sure what her next project will be but I am sure it won’t take her long to dream it up.

Aye yesterday, the were but wee bairns.  And now they have email?

A poem I wrote after David took his first steps…

don’t take time for granted
and the people you meet within its bounds
for the space between the moments grows more fleeting
as time moves forward
ever onward, ever onward
until it is no more…

…and may God bless all of your moments.  Don’t take those moments for granted, especially the people you are blessed with in the midst of them. Yet, I don’t think we should squeeze them too tightly either, lest the life oozes right out of them.

…wistfully yours…