She kept asking why the Elf never appeared in her room. Because the sound of a butterfly landing on a blade of grass three states away jolts you from a dead sleep, that’s why.

Be someone who "puts nice stuff out there." Or if it's not nice, at least think about the ramifications before you speak or act. It's the simplest of concepts, and yet we wise adults make it endlessly complicated.

That’s “running” by its loosest definition, meaning I’m working up to a 5K at a blistering 14-minute-mile pace. But I’m three weeks in and haven’t collapsed on the sidewalk yet, which represents big progress for me.

I have no more talent for bread than I did back then. But I do have a kid who has attended King Arthur Baking Camp for two summers in a row.

These seemed fuller a few weeks ago.

“This bonding experience is over.”

I humored the kids while they made elaborate rescue plans. These included enlisting our guinea pig as a foster mom, leaving a trail of cheese out through the bulkhead, and putting the mouse in our travel pet cage, which we actually tried for 30 seconds, but it ended with me screaming NO! NO! and shaking the thing off the sides of the cage as it tried to escape through the holes.

Suddenly I'd see her tiny crestfallen face in the window, sometimes crying, sometimes with a little friend standing beside her whom I could tell was thinking, wow, sucks to be you.

It's never an easy thing to entrust your children to a stranger. No one wants to do it. And until now, I had a horrible track record with hiring sitters and nannies. One quit when her boyfriend broke up with her. Another faked a stomach bug for two days and then quit via a Very Long Email in the middle of the week.

My kids were away for the weekend, so I got to do crazy stuff like eat meats other than chicken.

Then I saw it.  A nest tucked in the rafters, looking suspiciously made of guinea pig hay and strands of pink Easter grass, which pretty much tells you everything you need to know about us.

12:35 p.m. Proceed to locker room. Allow ample time for bathroom breaks, twisted suit straps, complaints about hunger, and hushed explanations on why you can’t just yell “ARE THEY NAKED?”