Post-Epiphany chat

Epiphany is over now, but the concepts linger, of course. Coming home from some errands in the car this afternoon Fiona said, "Let's talk more about the kings, Mama."

"Well, do you know their names? Caspar, Melchior--"

"Mama!" Fiona interjected. Her face was frowny. Her mouth was tightly pursed. She was not amused. "Are you making this up? Are you trying to be funny again?"

I hadn't realized that my seminal reading of Lawrence J. Cohen's Playful Parenting had made me such a wiseacre in the eyes of my child. Nor had I fully respected how serious Fiona can be sometimes. So I went on to assure her of my truthfulness, proving my sincerity by singing a snippet of Bobby Vinton's Three Wise Men, Wise Men Three. (That song goes out to my sister, who knows the whole album by heart!) Thoroughly assuaged, she didn't care to know another thing about "the kings" and instead wanted me to dredge the rest of that song out of the soggy gray matter in my head.