GRAND THEFT AUTO

When my son's 2 year old son was at the house around Christmas, he played with my daughter's son's matchbox car set he had brought down with him from Indiana. When my daughter's herd got ready to leave, Matt said that one of his cars was missing. Ezra did not offer us any clue as to where this car might be, and a search of the house turned up nothing. It was concluded that Matt, a math whiz at school, had simply miscounted the number of cars that he had brought. He insisted that he knew one was missing, but caved in to the majority ruling. Fast-forward to March, I got home from playing golf and as I removed the golf bag from the car, I thought I heard a faint rolling noise in the bottom of the bag. Thinking thatI might have dropped a ball down in the club area, I brought the bag in, removed all the clubs and turned the golf bag upside down and shook it. I couldn't help but laugh when a miniature 1968, Z28 Camaro fell out of the bag and onto the floor. My guess was that little Ezra had taken an imaginary road trip into the den where my man-toys were stored, and driven it off into the abyss of the golf bag. Being unable to retrieve the Camaro, he probably went and got another car from Matt's collection to finish his trip.

On my birthday we all went out to eat at Longhorn's. The child plate included some grapes. While the adults were engaged in conversation, Ezra suddenly and emphatically demanded every one's attention. We all turned in unison to see what his problem was. On each side of his mouth you could see a grape bulging in his cheeks. His arms were raised with his fists clinched and when he saw that he had every one's attention, he slammed his fists into his cheeks, we watch him get this huge grin on his face as the grapes exploded in his mouth. The kid's got talent.