“Doing?” William used to say. Or “Going?” This was when he was less than two years old, a chubby-faced blonde who filled almost every minute of my days. 
There were only three of us in the family at that time, and these questions pursued Bill and me fairly constantly. They meant, as perhaps you have guessed, “What are you doing?” and “Where are you going?” With his gift for efficiency in language, I was certain he’d be a poet.
Now I think differently. Now sometimes I think maybe he’ll be a novelist. But he wants to be a cartoonist, an inventor, and an astronaut, in that order.
Maybe he’ll be in industrial design. Here is a fortress he designed, made out of Lego and Bionicle pieces, and, believe you me, it is intimidating. I certainly wouldn’t be about to rush it, anyway.
For her part, Emma Grace has become quite the contented and quiet player. Combining castle pieces from our Fisher Price and Playmobil sets, she has been busy of late packing up the royal carriage and carting Playmobil figures and their luggage all around the living room.
And here is Everett with his (current) favorite toy– a small orange squirt gun which he never fills, but keeps stowed in his shorts pocket. He took it with us on vacation and, a few days after we got home, realized it was lost.
We looked Everywhere.
“I think someone stole it, Mom,” he said to me. “Do you think someone stole it?”
There was no sign of breaking and entering. Nothing was missing but the gun. It would be an Unusual Thief who would steal only a plastic orange squirt gun… or any squirt gun, for that matter.
We found it; Everett was So Pleased. 
