Normally, Ian sleeps until I get him up on Sunday morning. Not today.

This morning he pranced downstairs in his pajamas just after 8:00 and made a bee-line for the gerbils' cage. With less than a minute, he had Peaches running back and forth across the obstacle course that Ian created from a firmly upright, perfectly still body with two arms outstretched in opposite directions. He giggled at Peaches' spritely moves and determination to cover as much territory as he could, as quickly as possible. He soon produced Blackout for me, so that I could join in the fun. It was a lot like Christmas morning - or perhaps like Boxing Day if you're in the former British Empire - where all the kids want to do is play with their new Christmas presents.

Ian begged me to take Peaches to church with us; he could wait in the car. I didn't try very hard to explain why that was preposterous; we just quietly left peaches in his new three-level penthouse with his buddies and his fitness wheel.

As Ian got into the car, before we had even left the driveway, he announced: "As soon as I get home, I want to play with those gerbils. They're much more fun that I though they'd be."

(This is especially impressive, considering how hard he lobbied to get them even when he didn't know they'd be this much fun.)

In the middle of church, he walked over to me, as is his wont (we don't have pews, so free spirits like Ian have more opportunity to follow their impulses...) and told me, "I kind-of miss the gerbils."

As I was driving him to his friend's birthday party after church, he asked me where we were going, and when I told him we were off to his friend's house (a thankful departure from the Chuck E. Cheese type venue that has become somewhat the norm in his first-grade glass), he said, "Okay... But I kind of miss the gerbils." He also asked me whether we could bring his gerbil in the car when we come to pick him up.

Many philosophers of the Platonic school talk about how the mark of true love is a desire to be always in the presence of the loved one.

(May 1, 2011)