In the dark, I hit the button on the wall. The door lunges upwards, but before the pink and yellow morning floods the black corners of the garage, my little boy has already raced past the cobwebs and out to the driveway to dance in the light.
I shift his summer backpack on my shoulder as I try to balance his breakfast, his water cup, my breakfast, my water cup, and an array of toys that must make the short trip down the street with us to his summer day camp.
“Baby boy, we need to go,” I call over my shoulder as I secure everything in the car. He ignores me and searches for pecans to crush with his foot in the driveway. He finds a few – early and lime green, shook loose from the tree above us in a hot summer wind – and puts his whole weight into smashing them into the pavement. The sky is bright blue this morning. A few clouds float in the distance, and the rising sun – barely cresting over the fence – makes shadows of the tree on the pavement. My little boy races to one shadow, then another.
“Boo-bah, now,” I say again, using a different nickname to try to catch his attention. These few short days of morning summer camp mean I have two-and-a-half hours to get some things done on my own. A long list of tasks I’m impossibly behind on competes for my attention as I watch my son examine the pavement.
I start to call him again, growing a tiny bit impatient, but decide to walk over to him instead and gently guide him to the car as I do most mornings. But when I reach him, he stops and smiles and looks up at the sky and exclaims, “I love this world! It is my favorite!”
His sweet little exclamation stills me.
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