After my son’s birthday, he and I sat down to write thank you notes. We had the presents in front of us on the dining room table next to a stack of cards and stickers. William had a lot to say and his pencil couldn’t keep up. Writing felt time intensive, and fitting all the words he wanted to use on the small space of a notecard seemed impossible. So I was handling the writing. My son was talking in a fast flow of words I was supposed to take down directly, and then he’d sign the note at the bottom and decorate with a few stickers. The trouble was, some of the words he was using were not exactly appropriate thank-you card material.

“Tell her thank you for the trainset and I love it, but that the top piece is really hard to get in place and I hate that.”

I wrote, “Thank you for the trainset, I love it.”

Next he dictated, “Tell him the lunchbox is great, but that I tried popcorn inside and I hated it.”

I wrote, “The lunchbox is great.”

I was my son’s silent censor that day. I felt particularly sneaky altering his writing and knowing he couldn’t read it and catch me. He signed his name proudly at the bottom of each note. Eventually I tried to talk about it. “Sweetie, you don’t put the bad stuff in a thank you note, just the good stuff.” Though I’m sure this was the right thing to say, I’m not sure he really heard me.

Even little tasks like thank you cards arrive with unstated rules. Or, to put it another way, writing a thank you card isn’t just about learning how to write, it’s also about learning what to say. Fortunately, due to my sneaky moves, all the words we put there were worth sharing. We talked about the rules together, and I’m sure we’ll talk about them again.

All of this made me think about how we are buffers for our children. We cushion, protect and absorb little problems, giving kids time to think about the unstated rules at home before they misstep out in the world. As I noodled on the metaphor, I realized how many types of buffers there are. In rail transport, for instance, there are two kinds of buffers: a buffer to cushion the impact between two vehicles, and a buffer stop, which enables the vehicles to say on the tracks. Though I’m no train conductor or engineer, I too want to help my child in these ways – to protect him from unintended collisions and to keep him focused on how to best move in the world.

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When I was a kid, I used to watch movies with my cousin Ross. One evening, circa 1990, while sitting on the floor watching the old Batman movie starring Michael Keaton, he decided he’d had enough of me. “Quit asking questions!” he cried. “We’re watching the same movie! I don’t know why all these things are happening!” I can newly appreciate Ross’s position. I’ve recently had my comeuppance, sitting with my son watching Frozen. He’d just gotten a nasty gash in his head from a playground tumble. It was bloody and scary enough to send us to urgent care, where he eventually was patched back together with a staple. But, as anyone who has been to urgent care knows, even the simplest procedure can take hours. So we passed the time snuggling, him in a stained t-shirt with a bandage around his head, watching Frozen on the iPad.

“Why is Princess Anna not allowed to know about Princess Elsa’s powers?” he asked me. I paused the movie to discuss. But this was only the beginning. Question followed question in mind-numbing succession. When we’d been watching the film for over an hour but hadn’t yet gotten beyond the first 20 minutes, I knew he was even worse than I’d been as a child. Simple questions were easily fielded. But then he started in on the stumpers.

“Whose fault is it that the castle froze?” he queried. “Is it Anna’s fault, because she made Elsa mad – or is it Elsa’s fault, because she couldn’t control her power?” I looked at him, laughing in spite of myself. “Maybe,” I said, “it’s actually the parents’ fault, since they told Elsa to keep it a secret.” He considered this, and then said, “Is that the right answer?” I shrugged. “It’s an interpretive question, William. It depends on what kind of approach you take to the movie.” Suddenly I realized what I was saying and backtracked. We weren’t in English class, I reminded myself, but instead the urgent care. “Well, what I’m really saying is, you could argue it either way.”

And so we did, looking at the issue from multiple perspectives and discussing the evidence for each. I was amused, to a point. On the one hand, here is someone to debate with! On the other hand, can’t we just get to the part where Elsa sings “Let it Go”? I found myself echoing my cousin from so many years before. “William, can’t we just watch the movie?” Secretly, though, I hope this is only the beginning, a memorable first in a lifetime of movie discussions. We’ll just be two English majors, hanging out and passing the time.

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When I was a child, I believed my father was fluent in Spanish. His ability to count from one to ten without pause was all the evidence I needed. It wasn’t until middle school that I realized his romance language skills are basically nonexistent. By then, a number of other paternal fantasies had also been exposed. My father could not control traffic lights, as I thought when I was five (he was really looking at the lights to the side to cue the “magic words.”) He could not reliably estimate the temperature to the exact degree, as I thought when I was eight (he was cheating). And he did not know the stories behind every stellar constellation, as I thought when I was ten (he made them up). Perfect fluency in a foreign language was the last fantasy to fall. But something remained standing: I still thought my dad was a pretty great guy.

Now, with two kids of my own, I’m becoming increasingly aware of the superhuman abilities they think I possess. Last week at the YMCA, my son was flabbergasted by my ability to bounce a racquetball so hard that it almost hit the ceiling of the racquetball court, which, as you might know, is quite high. “Mom can bounce the ball better than anyone!” he announced that night to my husband. “She’s amazing!” We looked at each other and grinned. I am not often praised for my athletic skills.

With a four year-old and a two year-old, I realize now is my opportunity to indulge in some major myth-building. Will I feign competency as a gourmet cook? No. The “proof is in the pudding,” as the saying goes. But certainly other things are within my grasp. I can, at last, be effortlessly expert in whatever I choose and play to an adoring audience. And when I’m found out for the fraud that I am, my children will hopefully know something that is really true: I love them and I like having a good time with them. So, with that, I’ll just practice my own impeccable Spanish and say adios!

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My parents recently came down with serious colds. I found myself at the grocery store late in the evening buying them a round of feel-better-soon foods: a roasted chicken, orange juice, whole fruit, Gatorade and a quart of soup. As I filled the cart, I started thinking about how often my mother had taken care of me when I was little. I would lie in bed and watch the trees outside my window, feel the gentle weight of a cat near my feet and wait for the tray. The tray had everything I would need to get better: saltine crackers, medicine and chicken broth. Now, finally, I’m in a position to offer my mom and dad the same kind of care. As I loaded the groceries in the car and pulled down my hat to ward off the rain, I felt deeply comfortable with my place in the world. I also found myself hoping that somehow I could pass that feeling along to Caroline, my own little girl.

I realized, driving the soup across the dark, wet roads, how I want to invest in Caroline – to nurture her when she is sick and when she is well, to show my love for her through everyday acts of caring – so that in the years to come, she can take pleasure from loving those in her life, whether it is me and her dad, her own babies, or a circle of friends so close they feel like family. I hope Caroline will know the sweet, secure pleasure of being the person who delivers the chicken soup, not only the person who receives it. I want to love her in such a way that she becomes an affirming, stable presence for those around her and for herself.

When I think of what my mom gave me through all those sick days when I was little, I often can only see the memory through the eyes of a little child, hot with fever, waiting for her mother. But from my mother’s perspective, I see more: a sustaining, capable presence giving out tangible love. Surely my mother felt pleasure as she nurtured me back to health on those days, likely the same kind of pleasure I felt purchasing her groceries this week. Such everyday acts carry with them larger, and more wonderful, implications. They help us carry forward a tradition of love and remind us of who we are in the world. They sustain us, whether we are the giver or the receiver.

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