The kids woke up this morning
and started playing out scenarios
where one of them or their friends gets bullied
they pretended to punch the bully
so I put on my wise and serious voice
and talked about how a bad bully is a grown-up sized problem
but they must have cast me as a park bench or a pigeon
because they didn’t listen at all
and now this pretend bully was trying to kick a baby
while their cheeks flushed with rage
and the effort to defend the baby
which made me want to pause the game
and madly read through my parenting books
but before I could
my daughter yelled as loud as she could
stop bullying on that baby
and shut up your crappy head
which made her brother laugh
and she laughed too
and they switched games
with the casualness that we used to switch tapes in a tape deck
this new one about being lost in a jungle
leaving me to wonder
why I read parenting books at all.