Being children

Over the years, for whatever reasons, we have collected some animal statues on our front porch. A few days ago I noticed that three of them have nice, flat, river stones placed neatly in front of them - in the manner of lares and penates. Then the individual stones disappeared and plastic cups full of stones (the prize pickings, I am assured, of the berm in our front yard) appeared beside the hedgehog, the sheep, and the rooster. Now the single stones are back, and seem to change regularly as one stone is preferred over another, but all are saved in the individual plastic cups.

"But why," I was foolish enough to wonder aloud, "Doesn't the dog have a stone?" Foolish grandmem! "Because," my oldest grand-daughter informed me in pity and disgust, "He has a bone."

I can see that I need no longer worry that my grand-children have been ruined by video games and modern society. They are indeed children.