amazement

"I did the math wrong," my grandson stated. "And then I didn't have enough for pizza."
"Oh no," his mother replied.
A friend gave him all he could, a quarter, but he was still twenty-five cents short.
As my grandson walked, head down along the little creek edging the school yard his eyes focused in amazement.
There, floating along in the current, was a leaf with a quarter resting on its surface.

this one

When the tide turns and water drains from the beach, river beds are carved in miniature into the packed sand.

This one looks like mermaid hair.

automatic pilot

A Long Weekend Hockey Tournament is hockey condensed and concentrated. By day three, parents have used up all their adrenaline and are operating on automatic pilot.
Things can get by them.
As we exited the arena along with a familiar throng we heard a little boy exclaim to another. "Now you can do anything you want to!" This happy announcement of freedom from one five year old to another was because a mother on automatic pilot, had loaded up hockey gear and hockey player and hockey sibling and departed, leaving her youngest unfettered and unattended.
Free as a bird, according to his friend.
While other parents pondered his fate a car zoomed into the parking lot and screeched to a stop even as a side door flew open.
Freedom nipped in the bud.

smiling gently

"Oh,"I exclaim. "My great, great Grandfather was a Haddock too." The woman across the counter smiles at me, her eyes brightening.
"Irish?" she asks, nodding her head even before I do.
"From the north," I add, and she nods, as though a given.
"They were in linen."
Her eyes widen. "Ours too," she says slowly. "County Antrim."
"Us too," I cry.
"Hi cousin," she says, smiling gently.