Last night Kelley and I attended the annual Summer Reflections at the Z.  Lance, as he does each year before school, showed a video with pictures and movie clips of the youth throughout the summer.  Meanwhile, our little girls played in their respective preschool classes.  Butterfly’s teacher was unable to attend, so Mr. Rickie filled-in.

Around 7:30, I went ahead upstairs to get the girls.  The video still had a way to go, but I’d eaten too many chicken nuggets and couldn’t stand to eat another one.  Upstairs, in the jungle themed room, Mr. Rickie sat in a small chair in the corner.  Butterfly and her best friend (we’ll call her Jitterbug…because it’s a cool name) were standing close to Rickie and jumping up and down.

“DO IT AGAIN!”  Shouted Jitterbug.  Butterfly ran over to me and said, “Daddy!  Watch what Mr. Rickie can do.”

So, Mr. Rickie place his hands together and magically, pulled his thumb apart.  (For the faint of heart, the magical instructions are here.)  Again, the girls jumped up-and-down excitedly.  Then Jittebug and Mr. Rickie had the following conversation:

“I wanna catch it!”
“No, you can’t have my thumb.”
“But I wanna hold it.”
“If I give you my thumb, you’ll drop it and you’ll lose it.”
“I won’t drop it, I promise!  I’ll hold on to it tight!”

Mr. Rickie later commented how he’d done that same trick six months ago and the girls could not have cared any less.  But today, this was the neatest thing they’d ever seen.  Unfortunately, though, in another six months, this trick will become boring again and Mr. Rickie will have to come up with new surprises…which I’m sure he will.

It’s neat to watch ‘em grow and learn and become so excited about the world around them.  A part of me wishes that they would remain this naive and innocent to the nastiness of society, but I know better.  What I do know is that the only way to combat the cruelness of world is with an unquenchable love for others and for their maker.  And there’s one true way to instill that in them.  It’s to hope beyond all hope that my girls turn out like their mama.