Y'all Are Young. I Am Old

This is how I take care of Owen and Gibson:
I hold Gibson and I follow Owen around.
That's it.
Occasionally I put Gibson down on a blanket or a bed

 or in his walker to help Owen do a puzzle

 or fix him a snack or in some other way do his bidding but basically, that is it. Hold Gibson, follow Owen.

We did get some time in his cardboard box house while Gibson was sleeping. He wanted me to draw some pictures inside of it with crayons and I drew a flower and a butterfly. He liked them okay. He always wants Dolly The Dog to come into the house with him and she'll tolerate it for a few moments but not for long. Perhaps she has claustrophobia which would also explain why she wails all night long in her kennel.
Sigh.
Buster The Dog came in to the cardboard house today but that was because he wanted some of Owen's sliced apples. Buster is a fruit-eating dog. We let him have some. Why not? There were plenty.

The three of us did brave the mosquitoes and sit on the porch swing on my side porch for awhile and as long as I kept the swing going briskly, we were fine. I used to swing Owen out there. When nothing else would calm him as a baby, that swing would. One of the biggest oak trees in Lloyd is right in front of that porch and I think it has magical powers on all of us. I held Gibson and we went back and forth and back and forth and Owen climbed up on the arm of it and held on to the chain because sitting and swinging is too tame for such a boy as he is. He is lion these days, he is tiger, he removes my face with his fierce claws and then sweetly offers it back to me the way a witty uncle pretends to remove the nose of a child and then put it back.
"Here your face," he says, holding out his hand, palm cupped up.
"Thank-you," I say. "Next time, give me back a newer one."