All of a sudden I look at a photo, and I am blown away at how much my kids have grown. Teeth fall out; teeth come in. Freckles sprout; feet outgrow shoes. When I step back, I see miniature grown-ups. Coco limped off to school today because her knee hurt. She twisted it while running. Sounds like something I would say. All grown up. She brings home this homework that’s full of intellectual stuff “we all” have decided is important: solids, vertices, nouns, verbs, spelling, geography…..

Which way is north? I asked her.

That’s easy mom, as she points upwards.

What if east was over here? I ask her, where would north be then? She adjusts her body a bit; thinks, and appropriately points to north.

Would you like to take the compass to school tomorrow? I asked her as we finished up the evening book and talked for a few minutes before turning on the light.

No! Mommy, she said as tears welled up in her eyes and her voice cracked with every syllable. That’s yours, and I don’t want the kids to break it.

Well it might be fun to show everyone how to you learned to use a compass. It wasn’t that expensive, I said. We can always buy a new one if something happens.

She shook her head, bowing in reverence as if I just asked her to reveal her deepest secret.

All right, I said. But it’s there if you’d like to use it.

She opened her brain and said her thank you for all the things she can think of that day.* She worked her way from her family, to things in her room, to her toes, all the way to the Universe. She then closed her brain; locked it with a key; and we said good-night. As I left the room, I spun her globe twice for good luck. If you asked me to reveal one of my deepest secrets, I would tell you something like this: I don’t really care what it is she learns. What I care about is how she contemplates what she is learning, and what she does with the information and how it effects everything in that spinning world. Maybe you could say after all those degrees, and careers, and titles, and all that jazz…I’m growing up with two of the best teachers in town.

*Brain opening is a strange little ritual that evolved out of bubble releasing. It’s possibly too lengthly to completely reveal here, but it gets the child to sleep.