It's 8:00...

When I was a kid there were little public service announcements on television in the evenings that said in a somber tone: "It's 8:00. Do you know where your child is?" It was meant to keep kids off the street and out of trouble and enforce local curfew laws.

Summer nights at 8:00 I know exactly where my child is.


Right here. The same place he was before dinner and every minute after he swallowed his last gulp of food and ran back out there. This is our marina dinghy dock, but for Z it's a marine lab. He spends quite literally hours with that net and a bucket or clear container doing his thing.

Catching.

Studying.

Drawing.

And eventually releasing the little critters. Grass shrimp, small crabs, eels, baby fish, jellyfish, and even some mysterious sea creatures.

Sometimes alone. Sometimes with a buddy. But always with an industrious zeal that oozes five year old on a mission.

And of course there's the myriad of dead things (thanks to the great circle of life and an obscenely polluted Chesapeake Bay) that he wants to either poke with a stick or bring home for display like a stinky science trophy.

I have to drag him away long after dark and promise him all the creatures will be there tomorrow.
At 8:00pm, where are your children?