Interesting name, right? I think so. The most common meaning for this name, that I could find, is “The Lord exists.” Last Friday I had an opportunity to spend most of the morning with him because his Mom, my daughter, had to keep him home because he was banned from day care due to a fever on Thursday.

Oh ya, he’s only 1. A little over I guess, and he’s getting new teeth as we speak. Hence the fever.

Jesiah is the happiest little guy you might never meet. He’s always smiling and he doesn’t cry at all. Ever. His Mom may disagree, but I can only speak from my experience.

So, Jennifer arrives with him at 0700 Friday morning, gives me his car seat, just in case, his diaper bag and medicine bag, then takes off to go to work. Normally Diane would be the preferred choice to care for Jesiah but she had something to do. I’d tell you what it was, but there’s nothing on our calendar that justifies her absence. Could be, also, that she really wasn’t busy elsewhere, but with me all along and I didn’t notice because she was there with me all along.

I was, as you can imagine, concerned. The last time I can remember baby sitting was somewhere between 1999 and 2003. That’s a pretty big gap between engagements of this nature. But, I shouldn’t have worried because we got along just great … as long as I did exactly what he wanted me to do. Apparently I passed that test. I found out that he was far more interested in catching flys than watching Disney. Can’t say I blame him. It’s kinda fun.

That, and it turns out he’s more interested in HGTV which works great for Diane.

He got infatuated with Diane’s neck pillow that looks a lot like a cat.

He was also very interested in Diane’s collection of cats

Now, even though Jesiah has a pretty mellow demeanor, he loves to throw things. What makes that OK is that he smiles the entire time he’s in motion with stuff flying from his tiny little hands. We learned, too, that things just sitting on an end table are fair game. He would walk up to, say, a glass of water, look at you until he made eye contact, then swipe his arm sideways so fast that no one has time to react and catch the glass before it drenches you. Then, with his smile still in place, he’d march off in search of something else to dislodge. Needless to say, he quickly trained us to move all items in danger to locations above 3′.

Toward the end of his short visit, his cousin, Jerrie appeared and kept him busy until it was time to take him to someone more qualified than me to tend to him.

It really wasn’t a chore. Honest.

He’s good as gold.

May the 4th be with you all.