Car Master

This is a Buick 8.

At least I think it is.

I don't know. I'm not that good at cars. Or wasn't. I'm getting to be.

There was a time I wasn't good at dinosaurs. I mean I loved them. We all do. And then I got good at them. Because of Kiernan. I used to know five of them. When I was a kid we had five dinosaurs. Now there are hundreds. So many of them. And I'll wager I could now name more dinosaurs than any member of my family save one. Kiernan could easily best me at this. But no one else could. I'm a stone-cold Dinosaur Master now. Because of Kiernan.

Same thing with the Solar System. I didn't know a thing about dwarf planets before I learned them with him. Now I can Haumea with the best of them.

Because of Kiernan.

And here we are at cars.

Tonight I got him in the shower and he asked me to read to him. "No. Not tonight. I just want you to get the sand out of your hair." He went to the beach with his mom and Gammy and Grance two days ago and still we wake up with sand in the sheets. "There's sand in the sheets," he said sleepily yesterday morning. There was a tinge of accusation in the tone. As if I'd loaded the sheets with sand as part of some new program I was trying out.

So he asked me to read to him in the shower and I decided I didn't want to tonight and he said, "Okay. Then will you come in here and talk to me about cars?"

Will you come in here and talk to me about cars.

Good lord. They say certain traits skip a generation. My dad, Kiernan's Pap-Pap, loves cars. He knows them. He can work on them. I don't know cars. All my life my dad has told me about his various cars. Jaguars he's owned that would make a car enthusiast's mouth water. Right now he owns a Morgan. Nothing ever sparked in me. And now my kid is talking years of cars and making lists of cars. He loves them.

Because of me. As it turns out.

"Where did this car thing come from?" He asked me this in the shower, as he cleaned himself and I sat on the floor, talking about cars.

"I think it came from the Slug Bug Game," I replied.

"I think it came from a dog walk, when you pointed out the car logos. You pointed out the symbols."

I beamed. I didn't mean to.

However we got to this point, we are here. This boy is nuts about cars. Wherever we drive, he calls out the car types. If a special car passes us, he makes note of it. When we walk our dog Honey now, he wants to walk farther to streets we have not yet traveled in order to see new cars. When we drive past a car lot that has cool cars in it, he calls it out.

"Dad! We have to go back!"

Wait. I'm getting ahead of myself. I want to save that story for another post. To distill it, through that experience Kiernan learned that driving down one of the main streets near our house and scanning the car lots would reap dividends. This lot was for a business that fixes cars after they've been in collisions. There seem to be a lot of places like that along Foothill Boulevard. So on this day Kiernan was keen to go looking at similar places. "Let's go to some more car shacks!"

Alas, putting in the search term "car shacks" doesn't give you much. "Old car shacks" doesn't help, as a bunch of used car lots pop up.  "Classic" in place of "old" helps a bit, and we went tracking down a few of those after a quick trip to the post office.

But first we saw this:

That's an Alfa Romeo Spider Veloce. As we drove away from the post office Kiernan saw this little flash of red and asked me, again, to turn around. This is happening more and more as we drive, and usually I just shrug it off, but today was about cruising around for cars, so I pulled a quick u-turn and pulled into the parking lot. We inspected the car, got super excited, then moved on.

The first lot was a disappointment. First of all, this day was a Sunday, and as it turns out all places that fix cars after collision are closed on Sunday. Who knew?

Still, we saw some pretty cool cars. We wandered into the lot in the picture above. They were mostly working on fairly pedestrian cars, but we found that sweet Buick 8 on the far side of the garage, and had some other finds as well. As we drove away to our next address we saw this:

I caught up with this sweet little car but we could not figure out what it was. Kiernan thinks it was some kind of Morgan. His Pap-Pap has one of those...

We pulled up next to the car to ask the driver what it was, me being keenly aware that folks do this to my dad all the time. They even follow him into his neighborhood when he's out driving. I know this simultaneously pleases and annoys him. So I was sensitive to that. Turns out I needn't have been. The guy was busy talking on the phone and smoking a cigarette. When we pulled up alongside his cool little car he glanced over at our eager faces, annoyance flashing across his face, and turned back to his conversation.

"What a jerk," one of us said.

We continued down Foothill and this caught our attention:

That's a Thunderbird. What year? I couldn't tell you. But look at him there, examining it. I love the way he views the world. There was also a Rolls Royce Silver Spur at this same lot, parked on the street to attract attention:

Yeah, that's just a twenty thousand dollar car, but still. How cool! It isn't the price tag so much as the rarity and coolness. He gets excited about so many cars. A run-down Datsun 280z will go on his list of coolest cars of the day. He doesn't care.

Oh, we keep track of the cars we've seen and discuss which was the coolest of the day. I love that too.

So this was a great day for viewing cars. We drove around a lot and were disappointed by the lots we scouted beforehand, but overall it was great.

Next up? The Petersen Automotive Museum. I'll let you know how it goes.

Research and Development

One of our favorite father/son activities these days is dinosaur printing. I'll explain it, and it won't sound all that exciting, but that's okay. We love it, and both look forward to it. Over the last few days we haven't done it as much, and I find myself missing it. There was a time things like this could get to be something of a chore. There is a certain boredom that can creep in when you get wrapped up in the taxonomic repetition of your kid's latest obsession, even if it is something as cool as dinosaurs. You try to keep your eye-rolling to a minimum, or at least do it when he's turned away, but boredom happens.

I don't feel that boredom anymore. Not about anything we do together. Be it calling out car types on the freeway, or reading the same dog detective book seventy-five times in a row, none of it is tedious anymore. No matter what else is on my mind I'm happy to interrupt my thoughts to concentrate on these things now. They are pure joy. It's funny how life teaches you things, and what it chooses to teach you. And how.

So...dinosaur printing then. Look, it's quite simple. Kiernan comes up with a list of dinosaurs from A to Z. Most of them are creatures I have never heard of since when I was a kid they only had five dinosaurs. He sits at the iPad and researches lists of ancient reptiles and comes up with things named Pleurocoelus and Gigantophis which sound like either random jumbles of letters or things he surely must have made up, but every one turns out to be a real thing. Most astoundingly he stores every one of them in that noggin of his. The kid is a machine.

After he amasses his list he brings it over to me at my computer and we set about searching for images. We sift through the results and go back and forth until we agree on which one is best and then save it to my computer. Hold on. Back up. First we have to create a new folder on my desktop. He insists upon this. We've done several sets of these A-to-Z printouts, so there's several folders on my computer. They all have goofy names. Like "Version Duoy" and "Version No Not That" and "Version Dorkopathic."

Once all twenty-six images have been saved we begin printing. We do nine pictures per page for the first two pages, and then four each for the next two pages. Then Kiernan labels them. Finally I punch holes in the pages and put them in a three-ring binder we have for the collection.

All of this is to say dinosaurs are a big part of our lives.

The other morning we were on our way to an acting job I had. As it is for the awesome children's theater company I work for, Creative PlayGround, I felt comfortable bringing Kiernan along with me for the morning. It meant him sitting through two hours of rehearsal and setup, and then another hour of performance and breakdown, but he's such a good kid he can handle three hours like that without breaking a sweat. Plus, he has an iPad and a Kindle Fire, so game on.

As we made our way into Topanga Canyon, Kiernan talked about different dinosaurs. He was reading his Children's Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs and going through the pages and telling me which ones were found in which century. "First I'll tell you which dinos were found in the 1800's," he said, and then proceeded to let me know all that had been found then. Next he moved on to the 2000's. Next the 1990's. I'm telling you, the kid is awesome.

At one point he told me which was the biggest meat-eater. It's Megalosaurus. And the smallest dinosaur with the longest name. That would be Micropachycephalosaurus. I'm not kidding. That's a thing. Micropachycephalosaurus. Who knew.

At any rate, the show I was doing that day is our version of The Velveteen Rabbit, adapted by my friend Karen Hardcastle. It is an amazing adaptation, and even though I've done this show for well over a decade, it never gets old. It's such a great story. In the middle of the play, as the boy just gets to know his new toy rabbit, he takes the rabbit on an adventure that makes the toy come to life for him. This particular sequence is done in improvisational format and goes through several stages. We go on an adventure of imagination that is basically up to the actor playing the boy--in this case, me--to create every time. As Kiernan has grown up I've tended to incorporate whatever he's into at the time into the adventures, so on this day in the performance I had Billy and the bunny rabbit having to escape "the biggest meat-eater in history, Megalosaurus!" We did this by using our Micropachycephalosaurus launcher to launch the tiny boneheaded dinosaurs at the bully carnosaur.

After the show, as we packed up the car to head away from the job Kiernan said to me, "Dad, I'm proud of you."

I felt that little tingle that goes up my spine whenever Kiernan says something that really touches me. "Why?"

"I was proud of how you used dinosaurs in the play today."

"Thanks," I said, brushing away the tear that had sprung to my right eye. "I have access to an expert. Know who that is?"

He laughed.

There was a pause. Then...

"But I wasn't proud of you for one thing..."

I smiled to myself. Here it comes, I thought. "Go on," I said, encouragingly.

"You said Megalosaurus was the biggest meat-eater. Dad. That's Giganotosaurus. You know that. I've told you that many times."

"But...but...I thought you said on the way here it was Megalosaurus!"

"No, Megalosaurus is the earliest dinosaur they found. In 1823. Not the biggest meat-eater."

"Oh. Okay. Cool."

We drove on and went on with our day. Yes, I realize that the "I'm proud of you" thing was really a way of softening the blow of the coming correction, but I still loved that he said it, and I was proud of him for saying it, and knowing it.

UPDATE: As I sit here writing this I'm struggling to remember some of the details, and am really struggling with the spelling of these ridiculously named dinosaurs. Kiernan sits at another desk just behind me, our chairs touching, drawing pictures of characters from his new favorite show, Ben 10. He's really getting to be so good at drawing. It's astounding. I love this, since I never looked at drawing as a skill. I just thought I was bad at it and left it at that. Kiernan's Aunt JoAnne gave him a lesson in drawing and basically told him to practice, and that has so paid off. It's amazing.

Anyway, he looked at my computer as I wrote this and laughed at some of what I was writing. As I wrapped up our dialogue he put his hand on my shoulder and said, "Dad, I wasn't softening the blow. I really was proud of you for using the dinosaurs."

Eight. He's eight. And utterly amazing.

The Annual

Every year at Kiernan's school they do something known as the Annual Project. The kids spend an incredible amount of time creating the year's annual project, and preparing for the moment when they will present said project to parents.  Parents are invited on a specific day at a specific time. They all assemble in the classroom and are educated by their children. Basically it's an opportunity for parents to see what their kids have been up to all year.

Did I mention that parents are invited? When I say above that "parents are invited" I don't mean the school sends out an email saying, "It would be nice if you could come by some time and check this out." No. This is a big freaking deal. It's a one time thing. It's an event. The invitation to attend is formal. Kiernan's invitation to us:

The Art of Nature. I know. It sounds hokey. The point is this. My kid's school did so much work to make art and math and science and language come together that I am a total believer. And I'll make you one too, before your reading of this is through. Yes, I kind of despise something called "The Art of Nature" as a knee-jerk reaction. The Art of Nature. Really? Are we in an episode of Portlandia here?

But it worked. It totally worked. Here's how I know it worked, in a few short steps:

1. My kid has started studying geometry. At age eight. EIGHT for goodness sakes.

2. I was asked to help with a photography project in the outdoor classroom at my kid's school. I readily accepted, and spent a morning helping kids take close-up pictures of plants and rocks.

3. I was told, as were the other parents, that this was for math.

4. Here is my kid's picture:

As soon as I turned in this picture, along with the other ones, I saw what the teachers were going for. There's all kinds of angles in there. You can see that. Anybody can see that. Even a math dope like me can see that.

So the kids worked out math concepts with their nature pictures (Kiernan's picture included a bit on acute angles) and then moved on to explore art concepts as related to studying plants and...well...that stuff plants grow in. Here's an example:

Each page of his annual project art book journal had a poem like this--a poem in a specific style, acrostic for example, or quatrain--backed by art inspired by a specific painter. Sure, I was a bit nervous upon seeing "Inspired by Georgia O'Keeffe" on one of his pages, but I got over it. Last week I was talking to a friend about my kid loving doing art, and teaching him about art. "Do you teach him about Jackson Pollock," my friend asked. "Because any kid can do that splatter stuff."

Fast forward a little bit. To the weekend before Iron Man 3. I decided we should watch the first Iron Man movie before taking Kiernan to the third, and he was up for it. At a certain point in the movie, Pepper Potts comes in and says some guy that wants to sell him a Jackson Pollock has another buyer for the painting. Kiernan says, "Jackson Pollock! We're doing him! Splatter art."

Turns out my friend was right. And I prefer Kiernan's version of the art:

The room was surrounded by huge cardboard murals decorated by the students. It was transformative. Beautiful and intimidating, as if Stonehenge had intruded upon the classroom in cardboard. It was so cool. Upon each mural the teachers had affixed examples of student work. Some of the work was string mathematic symbols I still haven't figured out. Some was the result of research the kids had done on endangered or extinct animals earlier this year, as Kiernan had done on a creature known as the Thorny Devil, an assignment that involved getting his first library card, which I chronicled earlier.  In the course of presenting his annual project, Kiernan systematically led us around the room, directing our attention to every detail. I cannot tell you how excited we were to absorb said details. Actually, I don't have to. This picture will convey it:

As will this one:

What joy it is to take pride in the work of your child. And what pleasure it is now to look back--no, that's wrong. It is a double pleasure to look back and think about the times my parents said they were proud of me, because now I get a glimpse of what that actually means.

Picture for This Day

Last night we decided to watch a movie. It's one Kiernan has seen before, but he was strangely okay with watching it again with his PapPap. So he likes to watch movies multiple times. Wonder where he gets that.

Not sure that should be a point of pride, but I'll take it.

Picture for This Day

I have no doubt I've posted this before, but I found it when going through some files tonight, and so have to post it again.

Enjoy.

From 2006. I send and wish love to all of you. And particularly wish well to Grand Daddy Jake.

Picture of This Day

Today we showed up at Kiernan's school for showings of the musical the third grade has been working on for the last few weeks. The musical is called "Pirates of Grammar Island" and this picture captures Kiernan right before the opening number of the first showing.

I'll put up some videos as soon as I can.

Chill

On Friday a good thing happened. Something my dad is sure to appreciate, as his grandson has. Menchie's, their favorite frozen yogurt place in the world, opened a new store just down the street from our house.

As the three of us drove home from school thinking about the weekend ahead, I recalled that Wendy had told me the place was opening on this day. It seemed to be "Coming Soon" forever, and when I turned onto Vanowen Boulevard there it was at the end of the shopping center with its doors open. Beckoning. I looked at Wendy and flicked my eyes over to the storefront. She nodded and I put on the turn signal.

They were offering free waffle cones. Well, not really cones per se, more like waffle inserts, and they were just okay tasting. But they were free, so what can you say but yes?

Speaking of which, since St. Patrick's Day was the coming Sunday, Kiernan got to pick clothes out of dress code. The shirt is this cool rugby jersey his godfathers, Darren and Daniel, got on a semi-recent trip to Ireland. It looks so cool on him. The hat he picked up when out shopping with his mom the other day. I love this outfit, and if he wanted to wear it every day, I'd be cool with that.

Coolest kid ever.

The Borrowers

I know what you're thinking. Sharpie! That kid is tagging that countertop! How sad that they've raised a vandal.

No, no. Kiernan is using that Sharpie to put his John Hancock down on his first library card. Yep. Look out world, next stop voting!

His latest project for third grade required he venture to the public library to get a book about an animal he'll be studying in class. He's known about this for a couple of weeks, and so has been going through various animals in preparation. His first choice was the komodo dragon. A cool choice that somehow fell by the wayside. Next came along the draco. I didn't even know that was an animal. I thought it was a mythical creature or a Harry Potter character. However, another boy in his class voiced his intention to do the draco, and so Kiernan backed off and considered the basilisk. I love the basilisk, and I think I first saw it during one of the many nature DVDs that my mom has given us over the years. I love those DVDs, and I love the basilisk, which is a cool little reptile that can walk on water.

Kiernan dropped the basilisk in due course and as we approached the library stated that he was going to settle on the anaconda. We both thought that was a fine choice, but asked him to leave the door open for other animals once we did a little research. Something endangered or rare, perhaps.

"Okay," he said. "So long as it's an endangered or rare reptile."

We got to the library and set about filling out applications for library cards for the Los Angeles Public Library system. I have a library card, but it's been so long since I used it that it was expired. I feel bad about that. We never go to the library. We have far more often gone to the bookstore to hang out than to the library. Why is that? We can get stuff there. I can get journal refills there. And a latte. And I feel like we can be louder there. Of course now all the bookstores are disappearing, so we just frequent Amazon. Kind of hard to hang out with your kid there. Sigh.

Anyway, we all filled out library card applications together, which was kind of fun. Then we all signed them.  There he is, up there, signing his.

His first library card. Here's hoping we use it more than once.

Oh, and the animal he settled on is called a Moloch. Also known as the thorny devil.

Picture for This Day

A rare picture of Wolverine and his mom.

Short Circuit

In the continuing saga that is Kiernan Learning to Ride A Bike, progress tends to be incremental, rather than by leaps and bounds. That's fine with us. We are in no hurry. This is obvious since it took us eight years (plus...yes, we know...plus) to get him off of training wheels. Now that he is off and riding, the little moments of progress are more pronounced, if less profound. In posts past he learned to ride on his own, and then mastered starting and stopping, and began the process of negotiating turns. This past weekend he learned to lead.

After soccer practice on Saturday we returned home and changed clothes. I decided a good father/son activity would be to go right back out and do some more bike practice, only this time I wanted to ride with him. Problem is we haven't quite figured out the logistics of bicycle transport yet. It's way too much of a production at present. Neither my car nor Wendy's has a bike rack, or bike clamp thingy attached to the back, so getting the bikes to the park takes some doing and involves multiple vehicles. Seats have to be put down or removed, and children have to be squozen in between them. It's pretty annoying. I don't see how in the future we are going to get around this. I need to figure out a solution that works for all three of us. Something Wendy can do too, when I'm not around. So hoisting bikes onto the roof of the car seems out of the question. Furthermore, mounting three bikes onto the back of the car seems unweildy. I mean, parallel parking is enough of a task without a weird extension slapped onto the back of the vehicle.

What I want is unreasonable. I want either some kind of teleportation device, or a bike shrinkage device. As neither of which seem to be in the offing, I suppose I'll have to figure something else out.

On this particular Saturday I was in luck. I figured if I could pull one of the back seats out of my car I could get both my bike and Kiernan's bike into the car and still get the two of us over to the college parking lot. The college is within fairly easy riding distance, but he's not quite ready for that kind of street riding yet, as he expressed to me when I floated this as an option. Wendy was off taking advantage of a massage Groupon that was about to expire, so I only had to consider our two bikes. As I said, luck was on my side. The seat behind my driver seat removed, both our bikes fit perfectly. Off to the college we went.

I pulled our bikes out and handed Kiernan his helmet. "I need to get one of these for myself," I said. "Why?" he asked. "You're an adult." I smiled. "Yeah, but I still need to protect my head." I don't want to wear one of those goofy helmets, but he's such a good sport about it that I want to do it out of solidarity. I can't stand it when his neighborhood friends rib him about wearing his helmet. I feel like a jerk for making him wear one. But why should I feel that way just because their parents don't care about head injuries happening to their children? [Yeah, that was a cruel thing to say, but it made me feel better.] The point is, I need to get helmets for Wendy and myself; if he has to endure the indignity brought about by safety [read: over-protectiveness , we should have to be in the same boat.

Kiernan got right on his bike and started riding, and I hopped on  mine too, following. "Don't follow too closely!" His voice conveyed way too much concern. "Why? You'll be fine," I assured him.

"What if I stop too quickly?"

"I can handle it. Believe me. I'll stop in time."

"What if you don't?"

"I will. I promise."

"I'll warn you."

We did a couple of circuits of the parking lot, me being careful not to be too close, and him being nervous I wasn't being careful about being too close. I offered to lead once, but he said he wasn't ready for that. "What if I follow too closely?"

Where all this worry about following too closely comes from is anyone's guess. I am reminded of learning to drive. My first time on the highway in Virginia, going to the mall. My dad constantly harping on the two-second rule for space between our car and the one in front of us. He was driving me nuts! Maybe that's one of those things that skips a generation, like the twins gene.

Anyway, it was a great day, and I can't wait to get back out again. Lessons to come, for those following his progress:

-Learning to start with his left foot: right now he can only get going if his right pedal is in the exact perfect position. He'll walk the bike around the block to get the pedals situated for this. I want him to start launching with his left foot, and then be able to start from the pedals at any position.

-Learning to get going with the bike facing uphill: right now he can only get started on a flat surface or facing downhill. I want him to be able to get going from a dead stop, on an incline. This is going to be a tough one, I believe. But it's a goal. And as I'm discovering daily, goals are good.

Here's a video of me following him that day at Pierce College. Yes yes, I know. Working camera while riding a bike is not exactly modeling good safety practice. What can I say? I'm a guerrilla blogging dad filmmaker. Some risks are to be expected.

Picture for This Day

A shot Wendy took a few weeks ago.

Turning the Corner

At long last we have taught Kiernan to ride a bike!

It's about time, you say. I agree, I reply. It's ridiculous that it has taken this long, but he's got it now and we're pretty excited. A few weeks ago we took him to a nearby park to get him up on his bike without training wheels for the first time in a very long time. Some time ago Gammy and Grance tried to get him to learn to do this. They removed the training wheels on the bike they'd given him and tried to help him learn, but we didn't reinforce their early efforts and Kiernan wasn't really interested in trying, so we stopped pushing the issue. Which, again, I realize was silly.

This time around he is ready. That first day he started to get the hang of it, and a few days later we moved on to another park and invited a few of his friends who can ride. On this outing he got it. One of us would get him started and run along with him holding onto the seat. In no time at all we were jogging along next to him without touching the bike for the most part. It was pretty exciting. He still could not start on his own, and stopping was a move more akin to "abandon ship!" than to stopping a bike and carefully dismounting. When he was ready to stop he'd slow down, swing his leg over and run away from the bike as it fell, reminding me of the way Bill Watterson depicts the relationship between Calvin and his bike. Calvin imagines his bike is an evil force that always out to get him.

A week or so later when Wendy was hanging out with friends I took Kiernan out to the park again to master starting and stopping, which he did fairly quickly. So he had most of the elements of bike riding and just needed more practice. As he rode in the neighborhood I realized I next needed to teach him tighter cornering. He would ride down the sidewalk with his friends. Stop his bike. Get off. Turn it around. And then ride back. That would never do, especially since we weren't allowing him to leave the sidewalk to turn around in the road as I did when I was a kid. Actually, when I was a kid we didn't even have sidewalks. Just five feet of snow. Uphill. Both ways.

So the next weekend it was off to the local college to practice his general skills and learn how to execute tighter turns. I decided a parking lot would be better than a bike path for this, both because it would afford him some space to tool around, and because it would enable him to practice without a bunch of people, including friends, around. I think part of what was holding him back and making him resistant to learning to ride the bike was that his friends were so good at it--especially the much younger brothers of his friends--and he was still learning. "Dude! Why's your dad still holding on to your bike?" That kind of thing will sour a kid on trying pretty quickly.

So we headed to Pierce College and set up a little obstacle course. He took to it right away, as you can see. Now he's making turns and starting and stopping like a pro. And, most importantly, after we finished riding on this day I asked him how he felt about it. "You know what? That was really fun!"

That's when we knew he had turned the corner for good.

Hug if by Night

When Kiernan makes a noise for the first time after he's truly fallen asleep, it's usually somewhere close to midnight, and it usually means it's time for his overnight bathroom break. We still assist him with this, though he's starting to do it on his own. There is something so wonderful about coaxing your sleeping child out of bed because you know his rhythms, shepherding him to the bathroom, and then steering him back to bed where he will dive under the covers, gather his most precious stuffed animals, and fall immediately back to sleep. I suppose we could have forced him to learn to do this on his own by now, but for a variety of reasons we have not. I could say it is because he hasn't been ready, but really it's because we haven't. This moment is too lovely, and we are both aware that it will disappear all too soon. In fact it is starting to, as he seems to rise and go on his own a little bit more frequently. Soon he won't need our help at all with this, and there will go another milestone.

Such is the plight of parents.

The other night when he stirred in the middle of the night Wendy and I were both home. We sprang into action, Wendy helping him rise out of bed and make his way to the bathroom. I stroked his hair as he walked by, saying something loving. He did his business and headed back out of the bathroom, stepping over the baby gate we have set up to keep the dog out of the cat's litter box. I stood against the wall a few feet away, facing him. As his second foot hit the carpet, his eyes still not fully open, he seemed about to stumble. I immediately leaned forward, opening my arms to catch him just in case. It turned out my help was unnecessary; he hadn't been close to stumbling. But without missing a beat he raised his arms and walked into mine, wrapping me in a sleepy hug. In the middle of the night, there in the hallway. I held him for a moment and then he released me, proceeding with sleep-heavy steps back into his room.

It's moments like that.