“Annie! Carla! Time to brush teeth!” I say, as the children hustle upstairs.

Annie stops in her tracks and stares up at me with huge sad eyes.

“Ooh! We were about to travel back in time! Mom!” she exclaims. I tell her she has ten more minutes, and I head for refuge in my own room.

Five minutes later — she and Carla bustle into the room.

“We need toilet paper, because we’re in another world,” Carla tells me, matter-of-factly.

—

Apparently the girls are in ancient Egypt tonight, wrapping up some mummies with toilet paper. It’s really adorable when they play like this. I almost hate to interrupt them at all, but it is getting late and there’s school tomorrow. But really, what’s more important, sleep and promptness and being all orderly, or wild and wonderful creative abandon in another world?

5 extra minutes. Just because.