Being a parent sometimes means developing strong opinions about things you knew nothing about before your kids were born—like what the best optional-second-player mechanics are for platformer games.

Last Christmas, we got kiddo one of those Wreck this Journal books, which is why there was a block of ice with “figure out a way to freeze this page” peering out from it that was melting in the sink while I was listening to French internet radio and making a batch of muesli this afternoon.

Kiddo has been really into Greek mythology lately, and this has culminated in presenting me with “twelve trials” à la Heracles—but that basically get me to clean her room.

“Well, I GUESS I’d better stop talking about the FURIES [of Greek myth] so my dad can go off and have a good time at WORK!” I mean, I’m just trying to get us out the door to school on time, but I still feel like I’ve been owned.

This afternoon has been a reminder that we are a family that a) plays library for fun and b) gets distracted from playing library by the books that we’re supposed to be checking out to stuffies.