Making Lemonade

“Santa’s smaller than he was last year,” Acorn said.
“You’ve grown, honey,” my mother assured him.
They’re both right. Of course.

Acorn to my mother, gazing after an adult walking with her sons:
“Oh, look at Miss Sonia. She’s so lucky. She has three boys. She’s lucky to have three boys. Mommy just has one boy: me.”

In the middle of dinner tonight, after a brief silence, Acorn spoke up.
“I like living lots,” he informed us.
Confused, we agreed that that was good. He continued:
“Because when the dinosaurs were stepping on cars they ate a lots of people. I’m glad I didn’t get eated by a dinosaur.”
So are we all, darling [...]

A few nights ago, Acorn requested “silly songs” as we drove home. I thought “18 Wheels on a Big Rig” might amuse him.
I was rewarded with the purest of laughter, a new way to delight my boy, and an earworm that just won’t die. The part where you count in Roman numerals is [...]

A camera couldn’t have captured the image: a small person, huddled just inside the door of a dim bedroom under a red flannel sheet. Sound asleep.
“Mommy?” he says when he wakes. Then his face crumples as he remembers. “Mommy, it was too late.”
I know what this means: time to clean the [...]

I chose to vote early specifically so that Acorn could go with me: I thought it would be a good chance to talk with him about how our government works. “We’re going to go vote for who we want to run our government,” I told him.
“Who will win?” he asked.
“We don’t know who will [...]

One of Acorn’s favourite sights around town.

You’d think the dog days of summer would be long past us, now that the end of October is approaching. You’d have to live in a different climate, of course: We didn’t put away our shorts until last week. Until that point, it could still be hot enough to be uncomfortable without them.
And [...]

Coins shimmered and clanged on the table as they rolled from the piggy bank. The family friend who was sorting the coins as I helped Acorn count them told him he was very lucky to have all that money.
“He earned a lot of it,” I said.
She watched as he showed off with a somersault [...]

“Acorn, if you don’t settle down and go to sleep, I’m going to come in there and take every single book out of your room.”