Walking with Friends to a Pebbly Beach.

Their mothers plead, "stay close!"

"We can't," they smile back. "Adventure calls!"

Remembering their own long ago adventures, the mothers hold their breath and say a prayer as they watch those who are most precious to them splash about in ankle deep water; now knee deep...Oops, too far! A kicking and thrashing child is whisked to safety, and given an apple to pacify him in his despair.

But it only lasts a moment. The boy grabs the apple from his mother, who is now distracted by the baby at her breast.  He runs down the beach, over glittering sea shells, and beneath an ever-changing, emotion filled sky. He scrambles up rocks, and stumbles down the other side. He discovers a sea shell with legs, who scurries over the beach, and tickles his hand so that, for a moment, he jumps back in fear.  Regaining his courage, he takes a closer look. His vocabulary is still limited, so instead of thinking, he feels the thought: this world is wondrous!

His mother, still grouped with the other mothers, watches her boy transform into something wild; ornamented in scratches, and sand, and bits of apple and seaweed. Her heart fills with his delight and her own apprehension that one wrong step might result in tears, a trip to the Emergency Room, or worse. She smiles as he runs toward her with open arms, and her mind turns to the moment, later that evening, when she will dump her precious wild thing into the bath, and scrub away the layers of dirt and sand, until her sweet baby boy is again visible; pink and peaceful, sleeping in her arms.  And even though she can lay claim to hundreds of useful words, she too, feels, rather than thinks the thought: this world is wondrous!