It was just too sunny, too warm. It’s the last Sunday of the month, which means Polish Mass Sunday, which means a free morning as Mass doesn’t begin until three in the afternoon. But when E woke up from his nap, it was just too sunny, too warm to haul him off sit inside. Granted, there are spiritual benefits, but there are spiritual benefits of just hanging out together, father and son, as well. “Besides,” I reasoned, “I have to go to confession anyway. Might as well have something more to confess.”

There was of course swinging. What would a trip down to the lower part of the backyard — the only flat part other than the area immediately around the house — be without some swinging?

There was of course some playing in the water. More than a little. It was a pole for the afternoon, that and the swing. Swing a little, play with a stick in the water a little. Repeat.

Each time we returned to the swing, the shadows were a bit longer, the air a bit chillier, and my initial excitement somewhat dampened. After all, what is swinging for the pusher? Now that the Boy can carry on long conversations, it’s so much more than it used to be, but it’s still a little monotonous. Especially when the Boy gets hooked on a conversational topic, like this afternoon, when he was talking constantly about his blue snake.

“Mama loves my blue snake. L loves my blue snake. Papa loves my blue snake. Nana loves my blue snake.”

“No, no, I assure you, Nana does not in any way care for your blue snake?”

“She doesn’t like my blue snake?” he asked incredulously.

“She doesn’t like any snake, regardless of the color or the owner.”

But what was this blue snake? It was in the water, he claimed, in the trees he pointed out later. It was everywhere — including in the swing when E hissed at me and then giggled — everywhere and nowhere.

We went down to the water’s edge at a new spot, more overgrown than the places we normally approach the drainage ditch we call the river when we’re playing. It was there we saw the blue snake yet again, a bit of vine trailing into the water, swaying with the current. Decidedly not blue, but somewhat like a snake.

“There’s my blue snake!”

But shortly after that, it was back in the yard before it mysteriously made its way back to his room.

As we explored, we saw that the wind and rain of earlier this week had knocked down some fairly substantial branches, and so we gathered them into a pile — wood for our fire pit or, if the quality is there, for smoking some chunk of meat.

“I’m helping you!” the Boy exclaimed as he usually does, and this time, he was right. Though his help often ends up only causing more work, this time he indeed helped.

“Soon you’ll help by mowing the lawn, cleaning up all of the branches, turning the compost — lots of help” I could have said, but he would have only answered as he always does, repeating what I just said with his mildly incredulous tone: “I’ll help you mow?”

By then it was time to head back down to the swing, though. The shadows were noticeably longer, and E put his hands in his jacket pocket, a real indication that it’s about time to go in.

There was reticence, as always, but the promise of being able to do it all again tomorrow has more and more of an effect the older he gets.