Out of the Closet, Finally

We spent quite a while today closed inside a little closet.

I had Benjamin pick out his shirt today. He chose a campground
shirt that, as he quickly reminded me, glows in the dark.

He wanted to see it glow, so we "charged it up" next to the light bulb and closed the closet door. "It's glowing!" Glowing stars, fireflies, a lantern and a moon.

He wanted to do it again. And again. And again. Our closet light has a pull-string switch. He had a hard time finding it in the dark, so he began asking the fireflies to help him find the string. (I helped the fireflies.)

He wanted to do it again. And again. And again. I could see that I — literally — needed an exit strategy.

I could just say, "All right, enough of this. We're done." I could if I wanted to hang out with an angry 4-year-old for the next half hour. It always works better to ask something like, "How many more times?"

In this case the answer was, "Three." I could deal with that. We charged up the shirt one last time and he got to wear it . . . glowing. And out we went.

Finally, out of closet. With a few stretches I've almost got all the kinks out of my back, legs and neck.