Timelessness of Bubbles

The boy was over at the house visiting recently. He waltzed in wearing his LeBron James jersey (upon questioning, he revealed that he was a bit testy about the recent Heat loss in the national championship series; the loss still stung). We tended to some farm animals and looked at some tadpoles. We tried to find a radio station with "dancing music," argued about whether the boy would ever have the need to learn the two-step and were restless about what to do next.

I mentioned that we had some bubbles - he whooped with joy (this is the boy who just turned 10 and is too cool for many things now, but bubbles have apparently not yet made that cut).


This is the boy probably 7 years ago blowing bubbles. I shared this photo in his birthday post, but I thought it was worth sharing again for comparison to the new photos below.


Bubbles apparently elicit the same expression today as they did for the boy as a toddler.


The challenge he set forth for himself with the bubbles was different, however (the boy is always coming up with various challenges to make everyday activities more interesting; being a boy, he cannot just blow bubbles - he has to turn it into a hunting or gathering exercise).

Previously, he had been thrilled with toddling around trying to pop all of the bubbles. This time, he was trying to use one dip of the wand for as long as possible, conserving bubble fluid. This made it imperative that he chase down and recapture the biggest bubbles that came out of the wand and then blow new bubbles from the recaptured one and so on and so forth until the original aliquot of bubble fluid was spent.


He was especially pleased when he was able to catch the bubbles back onto both sides of the wand.

The Beagle watched quietly, oblivious to the invented challenge, his nearness to King James and the bubbles


Then we ate supper. Dessert (or maybe the main course) consisted of gummy worms which the boy ate quite politely with a fork.