I played with Benny outside today. Just the two of us. We went out after dinner in the semi-dark and jumped on the trampoline. It was the first time I’d been on the trampoline in a long time.

After awhile we laid down and looked up at the sky. We played the “plane game” as we call it, who can spot the first plane, and then second and so on. As it was getting dark, stars were beginning to appear which led to some confusion in Benny’s 4 year old brain (he was convinced that one star was a plane, despite the fact that it still hadn’t moved after five minutes).

As we cuddled on the trampoline and watched for planes, Benny started asking questions about planes, airports and where each place was going. At one point he asked me which airport the planes were going to which I responded

“Benny, I don’t know, there are a bazillion airports, it could be going nearby or all the way out to California.”  This prompted Ben to ask me where airports are, which I responded by telling him that airports are pretty much everywhere. Benny laughed at me and the said in a do-I-really-have-to-explain-this-to-you tone of voice,

“Mary Kate, you silly, airports aren’t everywhere! If they were, everything would be squished, our house would be squished under an airport.” 🙂

That kid! He also told me to be quite and listen at one point because “The crickets are cricking!”

I haven’t done something like that in a long time, but something else that Benny said made me realize that I need to make a much bigger effort to spend special quality time with my younger siblings. I get so busy in the school year with school, work, photography, the blogging world, and my own friends that I never seem to have enough time to play with them. But my time is running out. I only have one year left at home and I want to make it count.

~Mary Kate

(The pictures in the post are from last week, not today.)