Be The Ly

My son loves to make me things. He is always presenting me little treasures that he has made for me. Little boxes that he has wrapped in tissue paper and glue and painted to look like stain glass, paper roses or bracelets made from colorful pipe cleaners. An old tobasco bottle with layers of colored sand, suncatchers that he has painted hang on almost every window. He made me a Tour de France trophy out of modeling clay. I have a number baby food jars that are painted bright colors, for holding paper clips, rubber bands etc.

Beads are his favorite. I have a beaded lizard key fob, a beaded bookmark(makes the book rather unhandy and keeps falling out, but he insisted it was a bookmark). A beaded ponytail bungee. My hair is approximately 2" long "it's for when you grow it out". I have many bracelets full of bright plastic beads, when he gets help from Grandma sometimes there are small chunks of turquoise or malachite.

My favorite of all the things he has made me is a necklace. It is white elastic with pink, blue, yellow and orange beads, a couple silver beads with the words "friend" and "live" stamped on them. In the center of the necklace are three white beads with words in black type "Be The Ly". I asked him "Why does it say Be The Ly?" He looked sheepishly at the floor "Well I wanted to spell "Be The Leader" but I didn't have enough letters. I told him I liked Be The Ly better, because anyone can be the leader but only I can be the Ly. He smiled at me with that bright blue eyed twinkle of his, swelling with pride because I didn't mind being the Ly instead of the leader. I asked him what Ly meant, he said "the best, first, most, better than anyone." I put my necklace on with joy. I felt like the supreme Ly.