Some things never change.

While I was rummaging through a folder in my photo archive tonight, I ran across this photo of a very young Walter (somewhere around seven weeks old, I think), parking himself in his favorite spot:

The photo quality isn’t great — I think I shot it with my old flip phone — but it really foreshadows the future:

I never get tired of watching Walter lie on Ron as if he’s a giant pillow put on this earth for the express purpose of serving as a cat bed.

On a completely unrelated note, we went to Mom and Dad’s this afternoon. Jamie and Ollie came over and entertained us for a little while before we left. They are hilarious. I’m thinking about getting Jamie copies of some of the Beverly Cleary books for his birthday. I’m told he now reads at a fourth-grade level (not bad for a guy who’s only halfway through second grade, eh?) so he should be able to handle Otis Spofford and the Henry Huggins books, which Cleary wrote specifically for the busy little boys who came into the library where she worked in the ’50s.

I really ought to write some children’s books, but Cleary has pretty much covered everything I’d be interested in writing about, and there’s no way anybody is ever going to one-up her. She is hands-down the best children’s author God ever set on this earth, and she may be the greatest author of any genre. I defy you to find me any piece of literature anywhere that’s any better written than Beezus and Ramona. If you’ve forgotten what it is to be a kid, read Cleary. She will remind you.

Emily