Stream Of Declanness

This morning Declan and I went for a Collection Box Walk down to the beach near our house.

What? Don’t know what a Collection Box Walk is?

Well, Declan has this plastic box, originally a tackle box, that he calls his Collection Box. It’s normally filled with rocks, shells, pine cones, sticks, seed pods… stuff like that. A Collection Box Walk, as you might have guessed by now, is when you go for a walk, trolling for new stuff.

So we went out, box in hand, while Mom and Elsie went shopping.

While we were at the beach, Declan saw a beer bottle someone had left on the beach.

“Daddy, look. Someone left a bottle there and that might hurt the earth and hurt the earth’s feelings, and we don’t want to hurt the earth because we might get sick and we wouldn’t have any place to live.”

Later, as we walked home:
“Hey, did you see that?”
“No son, what?”
“A squirrel ran across the roof of that house and jumped all the way, way, way to that tree. It was like super-yoga!”

And a few minutes later:
“I’m so mad someone left that bottle.”

And then:
“Why are some sticks sharp?”
“Well, some of them are just kinda pointy at the end so that part’s sharp.”
“Claws are sharp. Lions have claws.”
“What else has claws?
“Um. Tigers. Doggies. Pumas.”
“How about snakes?”
“No, they don’t walk on feet. Hey, feet and wheat! Those are rhyming words!”

Man I love adding all these new experiences to our own Collection Box.