We went to the beach this weekend, and Adrian learned how to dig up sand crabs from some surfer dads. He became a pro within minutes, and hung out in the boiling surf with his hands in the sand, digging, digging, digging and feeling around for crabs. He must have found at least fifty over two days.

He’d find one, shout out, “I FOUND ONE! I FOUND A SAND CRAB!” and run around and show it to everyone, then put it back and set about digging for another one. He was just as excited about the tiny ones the size of a pinkie fingernail as he was about the huge ones several inches long. “I FOUND A BABY! I FOUND A BABY SAND CRAB!” and “I FOUND A HUGE ONE! I FOUND A GINORMOUS SAND CRAB!” He was super cute, and really, I can’t believe how good he was at finding them. We called him Sand Crab Master.

Then today we were back at home, at the Cabana Club (neighborhood pool). There were 6 little boys altogether, rather wild, and they were leaping into the pool almost all at once, in the same spot. I asked them to be more safe and not all jump at once, or to spread out a bit so that they wouldn’t land on each other in the water and break necks. They *sort* of listened to me, but not really. They kept up the chaotic jumping into the pool at random, sometimes right on top of one another.

Then, just as I was getting completely exasperated, Julian got his friends’ attention and said, “Hey guys, let’s all line up over there and jump one at at time into the pool. We can score each other on our jumps. It’ll be fun! Let’s go!”

And he got those wild boys to line up ten feet back from the edge of the pool and dive in one at a time. I was looking on in amazement. Julian was first in line to jump into the pool, and as he turned around to jump, he looked right at me and gave me a smile and an almost-wink. That boy! Thank you, dear.