You are far from home on the way to your vacation. It turns out you forgot to bring your little brother.

You are far from home on the way to your vacation. It turns out you forgot to bring your little brother.

You’ll try to wait for him to get on the bus at the end of the driveway, but you’re going to be late to the other bus stop. The whole town can hear you coming. You know you’re going to be in trouble and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.

And you probably deserve it. So you walk into the living room, plunk the crying toddler down in front of the TV, and turn on whatever is the most obnoxious children’s show in the history of children’s TV. The rest of the day can be pretty much uneventful. And that’s pretty much exactly how it was for me, too.

Except for the rest of the day not going as I had planned.

When the boy got on the bus I tried to bring the other boy into the world.

But nothing else went the way I had imagined.

I found myself singing the song I had long ago made up in my head to a third year, “I heard the shoe.”

A fourth year I told, “He hit me!”

A fifth year asked, “Why?”

And the sixth year, “Am I as mad as you?”

I had never really sang the song to anyone, but I had to.

There were no adults in the room.

I turned the TV off. The boy looked up and asked, “Will you play my monster game with me?”

I did.

He got mad at me.

I got mad at him.

We ate dinner as though there was no other topic of conversation. I didn’t have to worry about the whole afternoon thing.

I didn’t have to worry about, for instance, turning on the second of my favorite Disney movies.

He didn’t get the toy I had gone out to get.

He didn’t like the meal I had cooked.

He wanted me to go outside and play with him.