(Give this post a chance to grow. It gets much lighter, yet more human, as it goes… )

Driving home from gymnastics with Isabella (she’s 7):

Iz: Daddy, I’m going to entertain you.

Me: Really? How?

Iz: I’m going to sing!

Me (cringing): Really? Do you have to?

Iz: Yes. I will sing the songs from “Frozen.”

Me: Oh, God. No! You said “entertain.” Not terrorize.

Iz: I don’t know what that means. But, I will sing all of the songs. “Elsa! Do you want to build a snowman?” … “Let it Go! Let it Go!” … “For the first time in Forever” … “Love is an open doooooor!”

20 minutes later, after the fourth pass-through:

Me: Yay, that was great. Ok, actual radio, now? Yes?

Iz: No, one more time! “Do you want to build a snowman?”

She pauses.

Iz: Why am I singing this again?

Me: Only God knows. I guess.

….

The mood suddenly shifts and gets much deeper.

Iz: Daddy…. How does God know everything?

Me (thinking): Jesus Christ (no pun, by the way). It is the worst rush-hour for LA traffic. There’s a HumVee wrapped around a pick-up. A few bumpers have already been intimate with each other.

And, I have more than a couple opinions and questions which I don’t generally publicize. (Let’s start with Matthew 6:6. But, that’s just for starters.)

Me: I don’t know, Sweetie. I can’t do a theological analysis in traffic like this.

Iz: Then, where did Santa Claus come from?

Me: Crap, Honey. I don’t know, either.

Iz: What about the Tooth Fairy?

Me: Someone is cutting me off in traffic! Mother!

Iz: Mommy is the Tooth Fairy?

Me: Honey, No!

Iz: I knew it!

Me: No, not you, Sweetie. Um, Mommy just cut me off!

Iz: So, she’s the Tooth Fairy?!

Me: I didn’t say that.

Crap.