The week before Father’s Day, the boys and I were working on cards for Kevin. Colored paper, scissors, markers and crayons littered the table. Three-year-old Atticus quickly lost interest, but not Lucas, who will turn six at the end of this month. When he’s creating something, he’s got a focus that belies his years.

When he was done, he crinkled his nose at his creation. He’d written it in yellow crayon on white paper, and the low contrast made it difficult to read. He was ready to ball the whole thing up and turn a little pouty, but thankfully I had an idea: I showed him how he could take a darker color and draw around his words to create the contrast he needed.

You should have seen him when I demonstrated it for him on my paper! His eyes grew big and it was like the giggles just erupted out of him like bubbling lava from a long-dormant volcano. He was so excited about this new thing that he couldn’t even sit still in his seat. He had the proverbial ants in his pants. 😀

I tell this story because I think it’s symbolic of Lucas’ energy.

He loves life and learning new things. And he loves people, especially little babies. He loves animals and all kinds of creatures, bugs and worms included. You can just see it all over him. It’s intoxicating and viral, and it will serve him well in life if he can keep it without getting jaded like so many of us do. (I pray about this every day. 😉

The other day before we recorded Lucas’ song, I asked him what he’d practiced to sing. He said in a sing-song voice, “Just push the button, and you’ll see…”

It was clear, though, that he hadn’t practiced anything (hence the “impromptu.”) And that’s great! I only told him to practice in the hopes that he’d mentally prepare himself to record something instead of claiming to be shy and refusing to say or sing anything once we were recording, like he usually does. It seems to have worked. 🙂

Lucas’ song: