Spencer at the Gate

Three days a week, Spencer goes to preschool. Drop-off for kindergarten is at 7:50 AM, which means we stand outside on the "circle" for announcements until right around 8:00 AM. Preschool drop-off doesn't start until 8:30, so we have 30 minutes to pass. We walk the long way, down all the stairs and around the block and back up the hill to the car to help pass the time. We also walk the long way in hopes that we'll see a neighborhood dog (and companion) that has become a treasured part of our morning routine. (I won't say a lot right now because I hope to write and talk about this more this spring. Just suffice it to say meeting this person and dog has been very important to us in ways I'm not sure have totally become clear.) The dog (and companion) are mostly on the same schedule we are, which is how rituals and routines are born, of course. But, some days, the dog isn't there when we get to the gate. And so we wait and hope. And, some days, when the dog isn't there, we go on and walk the rest of the way up the block, hoping to maybe see the dog (and companion) coming down the street next to the elementary school on their way to the dog park.

On this day, that is exactly what happened. As we rounded the corner to look up the street, Spencer took off running, shrieking something as he ran. The dog was nowhere in sight, so I wasn't sure what had elicited such a response. Seeing that he wasn't stopping, I nodded a vague "hello" to a mother as I passed, and started jogging after him up the hill. He was still running headlong uphill and saying "something."

I finally figure out that the "something" was "Christmas lights." But there were no Christmas lights in sight.

And then he stopped, right smack in front of a bush of yellow flowers.

And he looked at me, puzzled. "Christmas lights?"

From afar, he'd thought the yellow flowers were lights on a bush, and he'd run, excitedly towards them.

But then, as he got close enough, there were no lights.

But, he plucked two flowers... one for himself and one for his brother (because that's the way he does things). And we headed back on down the hill where we did, in fact, meet up with the dog (and companion).