Ashur

One day, Selah turned to me while we were driving in the car and said, "Ashur is my boyfriend, now."

"Oh?" I smiled, and turned the radio off.

"Yes," she continued. "He's realllllllly cute, and I have him locked in my heart forever." Her hands were clasped together and she was dreamily smiling.

"Maybe we should call Papa and tell him about Ashur." I got Paul on the cell phone at his job site on Oahu (where he's building his sixth bamboo house), and he talked to her for a few minutes. She repeated what she told me, including the part where she referred to him as her boyfriend. After she and Paul were done chatting, she smiled wide and handed the phone to me.

"Hello, honey?" I said, happy to hear his voice.

"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?" Paul asks in a serious tone.

"They're just friends..." I say, laughing.

"No."

Clearly miffed and unhappy about this new development, Paul is showing signs of becoming the father that waits for the boy on the porch with a shotgun.

Later that day, after I picked up Selah from school, she explained her and Ashur had an argument.

"...But, I won't let him out of my heart. I'll put a fence up around my heart, and a lock with a key, so he can't get out.... And then I'll put caulk in between the fence bars, so he'll really be blocked in."

What could I say. Hilarious. We thought it to be especially genius that she would employ the use of caulk (a sealing agent Paul uses in carpentry) to block Ashur in forever.

I just have to say out of alllllll the children Selah could have picked to lock into her heart, Ashur is by far the cutest, sweetest, bestest choice.

For now.