The kids’ school has a Mornings with Mom event every year where they serve coffee, fruit and pastries for the moms and kids. There are so many moms that they split it into two mornings, so alphabetically, we were assigned the second morning but I told the kids if Annika was up on the first morning, we’d go then, to avoid possibly having to wake her the next morning. This made Joseph very nervous. The alphabetic split is clearly defined on the flyer, and no matter which of our names, we are solidly in the second group.

“What name will you give them if they ask?”

“How about… Brown?”

“No, that won’t work. I mean, seriously. What will they do if they find out?”

“Probably kick us out. Drag us out by our ears!”

“Ha. Ha. Mom, really, what will happen?”

“Prison time, most likely.”

“Mom!”

“They won’t do anything. It’s allowed, the flyer said if you can’t make it on your day you can come on the other one.”

“But we can make it tomorrow!”

“Not if Annika’s asleep because I’m not going to wake her, so there’s the possibility we can’t go, therefore we’re fine to go today.”

He heaves a big sigh of relief. “Whewww! I feel a lot better about this now.”