Long Silence

I realize it's been nearly two weeks since I last managed to post. As the school year has wound down, I find that the demands placed on my time and energy only increase. It's hard to believe that the school year is nearly complete: I composed my final exams yesterday and I only have three more teaching days this week. Our finals are being given Friday, Monday, and Tuesday and then....summer break.

It's been a wild ride. I cannot but be grateful that I have woken up each morning excited and I've gone to bed each night very tired. As we prepare to enter into the summer holiday, I cannot help but to feel an enormous sense of gratitude. This experience has been overwhelmingly confirming for me as I continue to grow in my vocation to be a Companion of Jesus and I am excited for what the next semester will bring.

If there's any regret that I have, it's that I've not gotten to be in Cleveland for as many 'family events' as I'd have liked. I did make it home for Easter and for Big Bob's 60th birthday. But I missed my nephew's first birthday party last week...I simply couldn't get down to Cleveland. So I'd like to share a few photographs my mom sent.

The calm before the storm.

I applaud the idea of giving the kid his own little cake to devour like a rapacious beast. This way, his fingers - which have been God only knows where - don't contaminate the cake reserved for everyone else.

If he were not so cute, I'd be offended by this brazen act of gluttony. Then again, having been a prefect for a high school cafeteria, this is pretty mild compared to the way some of the students eat. 

A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips. How many children have begun the slow march to Weight Watchers with a scene like this? Sure, it's really cute now. But when we're cutting out the door frame to hoist him out of the bed he's been in for five years, who'll be laughing? It's a slippery slope that begins with cake and ends with being featured on some BRAVO show...