Chasing my shadow

Yesterday, Jack helped me make dinner for some dear friends of ours. Here he was helping lick the brownie batter bowl. Jack rarely naps in the afternoon anymore, so he is my little shadow now more than before. He plays in his room for an hour in the afternoon, but then I let him come out and "help" me with chores.

This morning, we were playing outside, and Jack suddenly started crying, "Take that guy away, mommy!" I looked around the driveway, and didn't see anything that could be described as a guy (ant, caterpillar, LEGO figure, etc), so I was a little confused. Finally, he pointed to his shadow, and said, "Make him go away!" I explained how the sun caused his shadow, and told him that we could not make his shadow go away as long as he stood in the sun. This led to some fun shadow-chasing experiments - he was delighted to discover that his shadow went away in the shade, and then gradually reemerged as he ran back into the sun. Some days I wish I could run into the shade and make my own little shadow disappear magically into his room for a nice, long nap...