Peter has had a handful of nicknames since he was born, “eye-poker” being one of them. I’ve been going through some old pictures lately and ran across one that illustrates well where this nickname came from…

A couple weeks ago, while the boys were at a water park with friends, Ruth and I spent the day just the two of us. I had to return some things to the Naperville library and thought it might be fun to try out the paddleboats on the riverwalk.

We had a great time, talking and laughing and observing bugs and animals.

What really got us laughing were the fearless ducks. We first saw them off in the distance, and I suggested to Ruth that we paddle after them. As it turned out, the ducks had the same idea when they saw us, as they paddled themselves over to our boat, I’m sure hoping for some bread crumbs.

Unfortunately, all we could give them was a wave hello.