At 4:15 PM July 29, 2014 Carly Elizabeth took her first breath. Today, July 29, 2016, twenty-four very short months later I routinely chase her around the bed saying; “You can’t do that! It’s time for your bath.” While she replies, giggling; “No way…”

Is it simply that I am paying more attention? Is it that I have, like an investigative journalist, been chasing what it is that makes us fully human? Is it the experience of having fathered two wonderful and wonderfully different boys’ now grown mature men? The truth is, I’m still head-over-heels amazed at what Carly accomplishes daily, and I have been for the past two years. I share that special wonder Bev Bos described having cared for young children for forty years and mentoring over 6,000 early childhood education workshops.

“The longer I do this the closer to tears I am when I watch children. I can feel that rush. My eyes well up experiencing that freshness, the aliveness, the spirit of children. What I didn’t understand when I first started working with children was how exceedingly interesting every day was going to be. There’s a spirit inside every child and every day it seems to change because they’re interested in new and different things and this has kept me so fully alive. There have been Masters before us; Piaget, Montessori, people who really, really liked children as much as I do. I don’t think you can stay fully alive unless you’re with children. It keeps me grounded.”

Amen!