I spent my first Friday mass this morning pondering hidden image pictures.  Don’t tell Fr. Mike.

The thing is, I looked upon Max, holding open the prayer book, waiting ever so patiently beside Father while we sang through the 7 verses of the opening hymn and he looked so little.  Could this be the same boy who I couldn’t help staring at while I combed the girls’ hair because he was soo stinkin’ lanky and tall?

Hence the thoughts about hidden images – the ones where you can’t be sure if it’s a hag or a beautiful woman you’re looking at, a frog or a horse, because one moment it’s one and the next, the other.

So it is with my man child.  He asks deep and maturing questions yet brings himself to tears of laughter over the newest joke book.  He raps along to Righteous B in the car but plays the theme to Lego Ninjago on the piano.  He craves the independent thrill riding his bike to piano lessons brings yet asks to sit on my lap during prayer.  It’s dizzying and good but like those optical illusions, it makes my head ache ever so slightly. I just can’t look away.  Who would want to?