all to himself

An only child this week, Hank has us all to himself. He's stapled leaf crowns, hiked to the yellow spring at Glen Helen, weighed a cantaloupe on the bathroom scale, and has plans to watercolor cards for Kobacker House with RoRo. Every single day he says things that make it sound like he swallowed a textbook whole.

It's actually a myth that cheetahs are the fastest animals, unless you say "on land." Because peregrine falcons can swoop faster than cheetahs can run.

You know our tears look different under a microscope, depending on whether they are happy or sad.

At a recent baseball game he tossed me a smile with a lot of teeth and kept going about his third base business (mostly kicking dust but also directing some traffic and doing a bit of cheering). Set free to run home, his hair would for sure spring wildly to action if it weren't for the helmet. The brain underneath it is never at rest.

Is there a difference between a promise and a deal?

If there was one more day of the week, what would you name it?

His feet have a curious relationship with gravity, like a grasshopper, like a human born with springs.

He mostly skips, and always leaves a trail of stars in his wake.

How did a platypus actually come to be? Like did a duck and a beaver have a baby?

Do you know what one plus two plus three plus four... all the way to thirty six would be?

If we put dust in a jar and shook it up could we maybe create a new universe?

After a post-game treat he cradles his belly. His face is sweet, like ice cream on top of a cone, his chin like a V of geese soaring in the sky above. His head tilts toward mine as he makes eye contact, probably to ensure I'm still listening.

Sometimes I wonder how all the inner parts of my body fit in such a small space.

Also how do we know how deep the deepest part of the ocean is if scientists have only explored about ten percent of all the oceans?

Swallowing textbooks whole does tend to fill a person.

Sometimes I wonder how so many thoughts fit inside his seven year old body.