Little Manly has been quite the exceptional young man of late. In addition to his obvious gifting as God's vessel in convicting Dadmanly and Mrs. Dadmanly of various shortcomings, he has also been quite the voice of reason and self-control.

When Mrs. Dadmanly drove the van off a steep hill into a gully, leaving the van up in the air akimbo like some Matchbox in the sandbox, Little Manly calmly tells Mom, "It will be alright, Mom."

He's been doing great with the start of baseball season, a southpaw starting off one of the scrimmages with 4 strike outs, 2 walks, no runs, and playing his first league game hitting a 2-run double and a single and playing 1st base the whole game. They won 6-5.

The other night, Mrs. Dadmanly did something that must have really impressed the boy. "Mom," he said, "You astonish me!" He astonishes his mom and me all the time.

He's a really big fan of history, and has hundreds of little, to scale, highly detailed army men from various time periods and nations, and is fond of turning our living room or bedroom into a full scale battleground of various wars. One day it might be Gettysburg in the Civil War. Another time, it's the War in the Pacific Islands or the Battle of the Bulge in World War Two. One night he had the Revolutionary War setup in our bedroom, I had to get up in the middle of the night. Well, the British suffered extraordinary and supernatural destruction of their lines, and Dadmanly cut his feet open on some plastic (but surprisingly sharp) bayonets.

Mrs. Dadmanly reads him some of the posts I write. He must be enjoying them, because the other day he told her, "I'm a Manly Manly Man." And so he is.