My children are plotting at the breakfast table. From the bedroom where I’m getting dressed, I listen to their scheme to write, illustrate, and sell books to make enough money to hire a butler. Yes, hire a butler. I overhear Rhys (because she’s louder than everyone else, always) trying to convince my husband that having a butler would be an awesome thing. “Mommy wouldn’t have to make dinner anymore. You guys could go out on dates. We wouldn’t have to do dishes anymore…” Her list goes on for another five minutes.

I hear my husband explaining that butlers make far more money than she thinks, and I silently curse him for squelching her plan. Her creativity is lulled into a coma at school these days; home needs to be a place to try out ideas and to fail so that we can keep trying ideas until they work.

“I like your idea,” I tell her as she runs off to school. “You want to make books to try and get a butler? Then you make books to try and get a butler.”

Who knows? Maybe she’ll succeed. And then I won’t have to make dinner anymore.