Turn around and they're one, turn around and they're 4...

I stumbled across this gem today, sticking out cockeyed from a bookshelf Dear Hubby and I have in the bedroom. As I went by and began giving it a push back in alignment with the other books I stopped when I realized what it was: an autobiography written by my son when he was 9 years old. As well as that, there was also a biography in it he wrote about me:

"When my mom was little she had a dog. My mom has 3 brothers. There names are K, T, and E. K is the oldest of her brothers. My mom ran away one day and when her dad found her and her friend he took them to have ice cream. One day at school she was caught reding a book when she should be working. Then her teacher took the book and burned it up. She married a man named D. She loved D. He looks nice. She had my sister in 1977. She had me when she was 22. Her favorite foods are apples, popcorn, and elk meat. My mom is very pretty. She has brown hair, beautiful eyes. She loves me very, very much and I love her! She likes writing and reading and a hole lot of stuff. She likes watching baseball games if there exciting. She is a busy mom. She is very alergic to cotton wood trees."

It was my Mother's Day gift that year. Taped inside is a paper tulip he'd made and given me, too.

I write about my grandboys a lot. But when I read thru this little journal this morning, this book written by my son who is their father, it transported me back 22 years ago as if it was yesterday. And I remembered the darling little boy with the flyaway hair, the skinny little butt that needed suspenders to keep his pants up, and cowboy boots splattering thru every mud puddle they could find. And I marvelled and was appalled at how fast those years have gone by. Did I treasure them enough, him enough? And as I searched my heart I knew that I had. But if I'd only known then what I know now I would've treasured them more.