Two Parenting Skills I Have Recently Mastered

When the baby demands MORE ZIN, I know he wants raiZins, not white wine.

When my preschooler declares that he’s Dr. Indiana Jones in professor mode and proceeds to take a drumstick and pretend to draw three planets on the “chalkboard” of the fireplace mantel, I can keep a straight face. Because first, he hasn’t actually seen the Indy movies, and dude, has he even seen a real chalkboard before?

And then when I ask him what the next planet in line is, he says that “his kids” haven’t learned everything about Mercury, Venus, and Earth yet, so they can’t move on to Mars. I give him a big hug for adorableness, which is shrugged off with “Later, Mommy!! I’m teaching my class.”

*The preschool newsletter last month noted that the themes for October were “imagination, space, and fish,” which I thought was a delightful, if eclectic combination. The solar system has definitely been a hit in our household, with much singing of the Planets Song, which does include nine planets, but is followed with a spoken footnote that Pluto is no longer a planet.