On the way home from our Memorial Day weekend at Nana & Grandpa’s, I noticed a rainbow in the sky just as we were getting close to Russellville. I called to M to look out the window. At first it was small, just a section of rainbow in the sky. As we drove, the rainbow grew, and by the time we reached Russellville, it was a full rainbow, touching the ground at both ends. Daddy pulled over so we could get the kids out of the car so they could see it better. (Okay, really so I could get my camera out and make some pictures of it.)

Maybe we could find the end of it and get the pot of gold, says Daddy.

No, says M, you can never get to a rainbow because as you walk toward it, it moves away from you.And there isn’t really a pot of gold at the end of it. Miss P said so.

Miss P is the voice of authority, as far as M is concerned. She is his kindergarten teacher and knows everything. Whereas Daddy and I know nothing. In fact, he once argued for a good 10 minutes with me at Cracker Barrel over whether been is pronounced bin or bean. We are from the south. It is pronounced bin. He refused to believe that I could be right about this. Miss P said it was supposed to pronounced bean like the food. Yes, in England. Not in Kentucky. The fact that I have a college degree in English didn’t impress him in the least. I am not Miss P, therefore I must be wrong. And that is okay. One of these days he will realize just how smart I am. It amazes me how smart my own mother is now, compared to how little she knew when I was a child.

Tomorrow is M’s last day of kindergarten. I am so proud of how much he has learned in just a few short months.  At the same time, I am a little sad because it is one more step away from a childhood that is going by much too fast. He is very excited to be an almost-first-grader, though, so I will enjoy his excitement and thank Miss P for making his first year in school such a good experience.

But Miss P is wrong about one thing: I firmly believe there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Remember the old Western “Shane”? At the end of the movie, Shane rides off into the sunset,

like all good cowboys do, and the little boy who has become his friend calls after him to come back…

While going through my old files, weeding out and backing up, I came across the set of cowboy pictures I did of M last spring, just over a year ago. He was so into cowboys then – the only way I could convince him to cooperate for pictures was to let him dress up in all his cowboy gear…

Now he has moved on from cowboys, just as he once moved on from Bob the Builder and John Deere Tractors. Today it is Star Wars and Legos, tomorrow, who knows?

A year ago, I thought I would scream if I had to listen to the Lone Ranger and Tonto one more time in the car on the way to Nana and Grandpa’s, if he ran through the living room again firing his toy gun and rolling across the arm of the couch, if I had to have one more battle about why he couldn’t wear Wranglers and cowboy boots to church.

Today, I wonder how it is all going by so quickly. I would gladly welcome the little cowboy and all that went along with him back with open arms.

Come back, Shane…

Summer is finally on its way! M spent the weekend at his grandparents’ house in search of tree frogs – his current obsession (I mean interest).

What is it that makes children want to put every small creature they come across in some sort of container? The tiny frog he found spent a terrifying hour in a plastic sandwich box with a handful of grass before we convinced M that his family was probably missing him and that we were pretty sure he didn’t eat grass. He finally agreed to return him to the wilds of Nana & Grandpa’s front yard.

Soon the fields will be twinkling with lightning bugs (those are fireflies for those of you not from the south) and M will spend many happy evenings filling old Mason jars with them. (Don’t call PETA on us though…mommy has a soft spot for all of God’s creatures, and we practice catch and release lightning bug hunting!)

It isn’t quite lightning bug weather yet, so I had a little fun in Photoshop…

As most everyone knows by now, Kentucky was hit by a massive ice storm this week, knocking out power for over a million people. We were lucky here in south central Kentucky – we only got a little ice followed by lots of rain. Our ice melted enough with the rain to save most of our trees and power lines. After several gray days, the sun came out this morning and backlit the ice still left on our trees, making them look like they were made of glass. It was a beautiful sight, but not nearly worth all the destruction the storm has caused.

I finally bit the bullet and got my business license so that I can take pictures for other people. It is something I have dreamed of doing for a long time, but always in a “someday” kind of way. Well, someday is now. My first shoot was for the daughter of a friend of mine. She is a doll and very photogenic, so she made my job easy! Thanks guys, for being my first *official* customers!