bitter...sweet...bitter....sweet

The 7 yr old looks the most like his oldest brother of all the sibs I produced. His eyes are the same color. He has the same temperament. Same hair color. But he's left handed and he is not handicapped (except by his disturbed father who makes sand faces that look awfully like self-portraits). So sometimes when we watch him running for a second we think that could have been his brother racing in and out of the waves, dancing in the sand, counting the dolphins that so quickly appear and disappear. Only for a second because that second almost stops my heart. I shut my eyes and shake my head. My sand sculpting other half looks suddenly breakable. He squeezes my hand. I take the sweet.

 ...and on a lighter note I dragged the 7yr old to a free program about Rachel Carson since we were stuck, I mean blessed to be, together for the evening, while at the beach. There were PowerPoint's! light refreshments! Slides showing how there's more autism (and asthma) and there's lotsa chemicals in everything -you do the math, also the obvious conclusion  is based on data! Also some of these chemicals alarmingly cause low sperm counts (which I need not explain to the 7 yr old because he checked out attention wise several graphs before that). So... since "population" was earlier listed with other bad things that can happen to the environment then wouldn't "low sperm count" count as a good thing? Bitter or sweet, or maybe even suh-weet, as they say at 25?