Today during sacrament meeting I was desperately trying to think of ways to divert Brandon's attention from bothering his brother Tyler to doing something more quiet. So I asked him if he knew how many lines there were on his hand, hoping to busy his mind with the task. He looked at one of his hands and said "three." Tyler scooted over and whispered with satisfaction, "Dad, there are eight lines on your hand!" saying it as if this settled any argument on the question.

Brandon took another look at his palm and said, "look, it's a spiderweb!" observing the way the lines criss-cross and connect.

I wondered if he would see the same on my hands, so I showed him by palm, about three times larger than his, and asked, "Is there a spiderweb on my hand?" He craned his neck to see and said, "yep!" Then looking around a little more, he pointed to the part of the palm right below the thumb and said, "but that's wood." I could see what he meant, the parallel lines, forming cross hatches, does look similar to the grain of wood, proving again that four-year-olds are natural poets.

Leaning over from the pew in front of us, Mikayla, who had been listening to what we thought was an undetectable conversation said, "Dad, there are really too many lines to count on your hand," probably having been attempting the task since I first asked. It got me thinking about my hands and I realized that I haven't examined then closely for years, and yet almost everything I do is somehow accomplished, at least in part by my hands.