Brotherly love

Now that Miles is in kindergarten, he has homework on a regular basis. The lessons for each week are focused around a letter of the alphabet, and each student's assignment is to draw four pictures of items whose names begin with the assigned letter. Joseph, Aniston, or I typically help Miles with his homework, usually by recalling with him a list of items whose names begin with the assigned letter, from which Miles selects the four items to draw.

This week, however, Miles did his homework all by himself, and the assigned letter was "J." He asked me if he could borrow Jude's picture so that he could draw him. It was very touching, but I was a little nervous that it wouldn't make sense to the teacher. I just smiled and said, "of course!" It was doubly sweet when Miles said that he was going to draw St. Joseph because Ander's formal first name is Joseph.

This morning when I was buckling the kids in the van for Joseph to drive them to school, Ander resisted his car seat. I gave him a little talk about how I want him to be safe, and it is so important to get buckled—when from the back row Miles chirps, "Yeah Ander, if you get hurt and die, I am going to be mad because my kids won't have any cousins from you to play with. They will only have Aniston's and Genevieve's kids." Aniston and I made eye contact and smiled with that familiar, understanding look. Miles provides endless amusement to the rest of us.

I am still pondering Miles' understanding of the universe.  ; )