Dana and I went over to attend church with our daughter Abby and her husband John; they were both scheduled to speak. Fish and Link, their three-year-old sons, were sitting with us in the church pews.
Dana—known to the grandkids as Gma—had her “bag of magic,” which contains books, toys, and goodies to eat. Fish was on my lap, eating some small quarter-inch square crackers from a packet he’d been given from Gma’s magic bag. He had been pulling them out one at a time to eat.
Dana then poured several pieces of candy into my hand for Fish. He tried one of the candies and went back to eating the crackers. A little later, he tried another piece of candy and once again returned to the crackers.
After a while, the candy in my hand began to melt—my grandboy had stopped eating it—so I popped all of the remaining candy into my mouth at once, chewed, and swallowed.
This did not go unnoticed by Fish. He smiled, reached into the packet of crackers, grabbed a small handful, and pushed them all into his mouth. It concerned me that he was no longer content with his prior measured consumption; before, he had been taking just one cracker at a time. Now, a dozen became the norm.
Hoping to counter the example I had just set for my grandson, I began pulling one cracker at a time from the pack and placing each in my hand for Fish to take. Soon, he was back to his routine of taking one at a time and enjoying each.
Some parts of life should be gathered with enthusiasm and gulped; others can be enjoyed and savored—one cracker at a time.
—Papa Shue
Everybodys Barn 