Lately, The Five-Year-Old has taken to balling up pieces of otherwise perfectly good computer paper, tossing them at random around the playroom, and then instructing me in a very stern voice not to pick them up until she has documented the experiment’s results.

After a bout of kitty asteroid tossing, The Five-Year-Old naturally wanted to review the results of the experiment with her father.

The Five-Year-Old, didactically: “Daddyo, tell me what you have learned from my discoveries.”

Daddyo, curiously: “What are your discoveries?”

The Five-Year-Old, patiently: “I don’t have any discoveries until you tell me about them.”