Spouse cracks me up.  Our eldest son is nearly seven years old.  His brother is a close 21-months behind.  You’d think that after surviving an infant and a toddler, then two toddlers, two preschoolers, a kindergartener and a preschooler, and finally, a first-grader and a rising kindergartener, that he would know you still can’t leave anything of value out!  Case in point: the detached hose sprayer thing.  For mysterious reasons, sometime last fall, a wand of some sort that apparently attaches to the garden hose appeared inside our home.  Likely it was purchase to “wash off the boat.”  Not that I witnessed any such action.  The boys identified this three-foot tall, black, rubber-wrapped gadget as a light saber.  Naturally.

I can’t say that I saw it dangling from the deck, but eldest confesses that is how it met its demise.  The sprayer part broke off.  Spouse was looking for it on a warm December day.  I mentioned that I’d put it in the laundry room – still a safe-haven for items of interest!  Spouse was irritated to find it broken; an interrogation of little people ensued.  Fortunately, neither boy hesitates to be honest, so the real story revealed itself.  Frustrated, Spouse purchased a new sprayer thing, which I promptly hid in the laundry room.  Personally, I haven’t left anything interesting out since my girlfriend of twenty years knocked over and broke a crystal wine glass at my first ever Thanksgiving party.  There was a 12-month old in attendance; she left the least ruckus in her wake!  Spouse leaves out tools, wire ties, calculators, phones, and they still attracted unwanted attention. Since our eldest is now a professional reader, I don’t even keep journals out in public anymore!

As it turns out, Spouse and I have received from our child a gift in spite of the assured death and destruction of grown up items.  Last week’s homework assignment was to read a book and tell someone about a connection related to the book.  Eldest and I are reading “The Adventures of Captain Underpants,” a chapter-style book about two elementary aged students who invented and publish a comic book about said character.  As you can imagine, underpants and a red cape are part of this crime stopper’s get up.

Every night, I read with my kids.  Lately, they read to me.  The afternoon and evening had been remarkably quiet and I looked forward to winding down.  After lots of snuggles, giggles, and sillies shared in the coziness of my first grader’s bed, he proclaimed an astute connection: “Captain Underpants wears underpants and so do I.”

Here now the gift of perspective!