while sitting in the car the other day waiting for the boys to get in, i noticed our neighbors had a walk-out deck above a first floor sunroom they had. the porch had a brick wall surrounding it that came up between the knee and thigh. the weather this particular day was crazy-lovely and i was thinking how neat it would be to have a setup like that where on nice weather nights, you could sleep outside in the night air and looking up at the night sky through gently swaying tree branches (akin to this experience). when the boys got in the car they noted my reverie.

ALEX (11)
whatcha lookin' at dad?

TROY
that porch. see over there. look above that room. you can walk out on there. do you see it?

THE BOYS
yeah.

TROY
i was thinking on nice days like today, you could pull a sleeping bag out there and sleep outside. because you're high up no one could see or mess with you. doesn't that seem like it would be cool?

ALEX
yeah it does.

TROY
i would sleep out there all the time if we had one of those.

ALEX
you should have one built on the back of our house.

TROY
yeah. i was kinda studying that thinking if we could.

ANTHONY (8)
but dad. if you did that, that would be like a thousand cuddles.

TROY
what?

ALEX
if you and mom built one of those on the back of the house, we would lose a thousand cuddles because you'd be busy.

TROY
you know anthony. i think you're right. that does look to be about a thousand cuddle project.

in giving this some thought i don't think we have nearly enough CUDDLE-ACCOUNTING in our society or personal lives as we maybe should. every life commitment (e.g. home improvement, continuing education, job change, home upgrade) should have a new line item added to the ledger sheet that reads LOST CUDDLES.