When I got home from work, I asked the Boy if he wanted to go play outside — to go exploring or something similar. With the coming cold spell, we have to make the most of the relative warmth while we have it. He was eager to go, and he was eager for L to join us.

He’s always talking about doing things as a family. “When can we go on a family bike ride?” “When can we watch a family movie?” “Can we go on a family walk?”

L, now twelve, is starting to show typical teenager behavior, like a reluctance to hang out as a family all the time. She enjoys it, but she also loves “alone time” as she calls it.

Today, though, we were able to talk L into going exploring with us. The Boy, utterly thrilled, took the lead and instructed L how to cross the creek, how to scale the bank (of course she found her own way), how to navigate the thorny places.