Alex was in trouble on Sunday. I’ll spare you the details, but suffice it to say the punishment involved the loss of music and movies for a whole week, and he was not happy. He disappeared into the basement for almost an hour, and when he came back up, he was classic five-year-old giggly, standing there with his arms behind his back. “Guess what I made,” he said.

I tried three or four times, offering the usual suspects: Superman, Batman, a rainbow, but he kept saying “No!” Finally he pulled it out:

It wasn’t until Christian came to take a look at it that I realized how profound was the slip of construction paper I held in my hands. It just looks like a bunch of letters. But there’s a message here, “th”‘s coded as “f”, strike throughs and haphazard guesses at spelling notwithstanding. And when I realized that he did this without help, it took my breath away:

Mommy, I thank you for giving me some fruit snacks.

(Batman fruit snacks, an unheard-of treat, in case you’re wondering.)

For a child who does not hold discipline against his parents…thank you, Lord.