Carried Away

One of the first pieces of advice I can recall getting as a journalist was this: When you’re profiling someone, don’t go around asking people for illustrative stories about your profile subject. The surest way to make someone’s mind to go blank is to say, “You have any good anecdotes about Amy?”

I find the same holds true for my children, and their school day. When you are in fact gathering mode, you can’t approach them dead on. They go silent.

“What did you do today at school?” I’ll ask in the car, driving home.

“It was good,” Annabelle will answer, not listening one bit.

So I keep quiet, and wait for information to emerge. Funny, this year Annabelle’s suddenly much chattier. Not every day, but sometimes, I get to hear about who she ate lunch with, or what craft she and her friends are going to try next, or what silly thing her teacher did.

Sophie doesn’t volunteer much, either, if asked. But sometimes information emerges, and this I had to share, after my whiny post earlier today.

We were almost ready for bed. Sophie was peeing (sorry, between the kidney stones — and yes, Ray had his procedure and is doing well — and the “nina” discussion, there’s too much potty talk going on here) tonight when out of the blue she said, “We moved spots today.”

I immediately knew what she meant. Miss Y had mentioned that every month, she’d be switching up the seating arrangement in class.

“Who are you sitting next to?” I asked.

“My buddy Louis!” Sophie announced. Louis is a great kid, a classmate from kindergarten. I was pleased. So was Sophie, obviously, because she started cracking up — sitting there on the toilet, still peeing — and couldn’t stop. I started laughing, too, and it was one of those (much-needed) moments where you get carried away in that awesome way that happens far too rarely.

It was a nice way to end the day.