Snapshot of a Little Boy

Paul and Katie both have parent-teacher conferences tomorrow. Of course, I have no idea when Paul’s is. He waved a form in front of my face at some time when I was too busy to actually hold the form. I have a feeling it was at 9:00, and is possibly tomorrow. Of course, it could be any time tomorrow or Wednesday. If I don’t find this paper tonight, we’re showing up at 9:00, and if we’re wrong, then we’ll find something else to do to fill the time gap until it actually is his conference time. In an effort to ascertain the actual time, I decided to look through his backpack. I didn’t find a conference letter in the paper jungle, but I did find a snapshot of my little boy. He gives me a run for my money on a daily basis, but at this moment, when he was sleeping sweetly downstairs and I was having a sneak-peek into his six-year-old life, my heart melted. God gives us these moments for a reason. Here is what I found: A small notebook completely filled with sketches and notes. I found a small calendar in the back, and the two dates written down were Mom’s Birthday and Gymnastics. He loves me! Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules. I try to steer my children toward good literature, but both Katie and Paul love the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. A army guy action figure and one of the plastic green army men holding a bazooka. A bookmark. The wrapper from some sort of Japanese playing cards A composition book. Many, many pencils. Now I know why I have no writing implements in my house. Books on ancient Egypt and ancient Rome. A Magic Tree House book. He’s way past these books, but he still enjoys reading them. A Lego Club magazine. A little book that came as an insert in the Ghostbusters movie. A Lego Star Wars comic book that’s been read over and over and over. Candy wrappers. Completed homework (Paul is an excellent student) and a parent newsletter that I never saw. A drawing that appears to be the ever-resourceful  Hardy Boys putting out a fire. Paul has just gotten into the Hardy Boys series and is reading his third book right now. A birthday invitation from two months ago to an Angry Birds party. His math textbooks. His speech for class office. He ran for president, vice-president, senator, and supreme court justice. Every office you could run for. He didn’t get elected for anything. He’s a super-smart kindergartener in a class of second and third grade boys. Of course he’s not going to be elected. But you couldn’t tell him that. Surprisingly, he never seemed disappointed. He just said, “Oh well. I’ll run for the next office.” And when there were no more offices left, he said, “That’s fine. I’m an alternate in case someone loses his office for bad behavior.” I would have voted for you, Paul. If we had more candidates for office who had the qualifications you have, the world would be a much better place.