Big questions

Devyn and Molly told Keith, as we were driving to get ballet tights this evening, that I had shown them buildings on the campus of our alma mater recently. 

The girls got around to asking what we studied. When it was my turn, the following.

Molly: What is philosophy?

Devyn: Ya, what is that?

Me: Well, it's a discipline where you ask the big questions: What is time? What is knowledge? How do we know what we know, and how do we know if we really know it? Hahaha...

Nobody laughed. 

Honestly, I should have told them that those are actually examples of the serious-yet-fun questions because, last night, a question that is harder for me to ask arose:

When does the character of Barbie become less annoying to parents of daughters (if we're going to keep this real)?

Answer: 

When parents are truly exhausted, and the word count is lower.

I was so tired that I actually asked Molly if we could read this the following night...

                        

and opted instead to read this:

                          

      

Not that there's anything wrong with Barbie or with books starring Barbie. If it inspires a child to read, I'm usually fine and, ordinarily, I try not to influence their reading decisions; but, let's face it: the culture of Barbie has made a lot of parents uncomfortable for a long time.

I told Molly the truth: I was too tired to read the Magic School Bus with the degree of enthusiasm that it deserved. She didn't fuss or complain.