Channeling my mom (but never her hair), I see reason for hope this fall: Kids' vaccines are coming

Last weekend, it was 3-year-old grandson Russell’s turn to press his hand into a shallow, leaf-shaped tray of wet cement. Twenty-four hours later, he walked alongside us as we ceremoniously carried his new masterpiece to the base of the dogwood tree we had planted soon after he was born.  

This rite of passage would have gone without a hitch had Russell not strolled past his sister’s tree, also a dogwood. She is two years older, and that is why her tree is two years taller. This explanation failed to calm him.

“But look,” I said in my best Good Witch voice as I pointed to three red leaves just over his head, “only your tree knows it’s autumn.”