Spirits of Awful Scots Past

I know a lot of you have five year olds. Most of you don’t have five year olds who weigh 110 pounds.

The evil Raebert doesn’t evince itself all the time. In fact, it’s usually at bedtime. Sound familiar? He’s tired but doesn’t want to go to bed. So he carps, and lingers, and fusses, and gets up and down from the couch for no discernible reason. He’s a pest and a grumpy one at that. When he goes into the bedroom he makes unearthly noises, as if he were tossing my wife’s shoes around.

He’s in there now. Because I yelled right in the face you see above you. You think that’s easy? Every once in a while that lovely lip curls and you get to see the most massive set of blindingly white teeth that can be seen outside of the big cat universe. All you have to do is tap him on the nose and he goes aw shucks on you and licks whatever your most recent wound is. But there’s that moment when you realize what our primordial forebears faced in the direwolf, a species documented in the fossil record.

They’re not quite as big without the hair.

One instant that makes you realize how privileged you are to have this kind of companion in life.

Direwolf left, Me right. On a good day.

A bad day would be different. Especially at bedtime.

The couch or else.

Yeah. I’ve seen that face. Only for nanoseconds. Which should be enough for anyone. But bedtime is bedtime. Even if your name is Raebert. After all, he’s the youngest of three Scots in the house. He’s five. Just five.