Funky Sleeper

I stop into my boys' room before I go to bed some nights to see them asleep. They're so cute when they sleep, and they look younger than they are. It makes the parental love swell. I wrote a poem about it that I don't like very much. It's the third-grade rhyme scheme and the sentimentality. I can't do much about the sentimentality - it's in my nature - but these couplets are a drumbeat.

A sight to make a father weep:
two boys, so innocent, asleep.
In slumber, they look so secure
I wish that I could be as sure
That every night they will be there
safe, relaxed and free of care.
Their hearts so tender certainly
will break a time or two or three,
and I can't stop that happening.
I can, though, stand here now and sing
a lullaby, a hymn that I
would love to have them dreaming by.
These fleeting nights, I must not miss.
I pause just now to plant a kiss.
Too soon these boys will grow away.
I'll stop here nightly anyway.

I wasn't really planning to post that. Really, I just wanted an excuse to post this picture of how I found Charlie sleeping last night, with his wrists resting on the headboard of his new bunk bed. You can't make this stuff up.