LADYBERRIES

There is no sound in the world more beautiful in a long life than your own little granddaughter’s hearty laughter. We had a lot of it at breakfast this morning, when Kaya matter-of-factly asked:
“Where's the lady bug?"
"What ladybug?"
"The one that was here when I was waiting for breakfast, she was walking over my chopsticks.”

As we ate we looked under the paper cranes Kaya had folded before breakfast; we looked under various dishes, under each of Kaya's hands, under her tea, carefully in her hair, in her rice, behind her ears, in her ears of course and - most importantly - under her chin, which was extremely difficult to get to but in such cases it simply must be done...

We listened for tiny ladybug snores in case the lady was sleeping maybe behind either of Kaya's knees, for example, and we spoke at length about ladybug habits and hiding places in a kitchen where a little girl is having breakfast, but the shiny black lady with two bright red spots (as ladybugs are in these parts), who had been right there just a few moments ago, could not be found even on Kaya's new blue chopsticks.

So we decided to go for a walk in the woods, where Kaya found a windfall evergreen branch covered in bright red berries exactly like ladybug spots. I could see in her delight how it all comes together.