Perspective and the smile binder.

Due to a crazy mini-blizzard, my finals were delayed until Thursday (grrrr) but I wanted to pop up for a moment to share an incident. We'll be back to actual posting this weekend.

A few minutes ago, Lucy decided she should let go of a favorite cup she has owned since she was a baby. So she drank some chocolate milk from the vessel and then unceremoniously threw it away. As I sat studying, she came in with her baseball card smile binder and leafed through it for a few minutes. Out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw her lip tremble. "What's up?" I asked. "Whenever I feel sad, I look at my smile binder," she said. The lip was now at full-brink-of-tears. "But why are you sad?" "It's just hard to say goodbye to things," Lucy explained. So I said, "Well, you don't have to throw it out, you know," calling upon my collecting skills. "You can save it in your treasure box. Maybe just don't use it to drink from anymore." Eyes brightened; lips firmed up. Before rescuing the cup, she reached in the binder to pull out a card. "This is my favorite right now," she said, and showed me:

Is that the innocence of childhood? Just a pic of a guy and his cute little dog. No complex thoughts about the intervening timespan or the Yankee connection. Then she looked at the back of the card. "Wow, the back stats say Nikko is 18 years old now!"

So I let her leave without discussing the lifespan of little dogs. Dogs don't play pool or do laundry, either. Reality often is overrated.

As we approach the end of 2009, may we all recognize what we cherish, accept when we should move on, and celebrate when we wish not to. And never--but never--misplace the smile binder.

We look forward to catching up on reading everyone's blog posts this weekend.