It’s late August. Truly the dog days of summer. No school yet. No football. It’s hot. We are antsy. Some days we are lazy. Preschool doesn’t start for my 4-year-old until after Labor Day. Scrolling through your Facebook feed this week you can’t escape smiling kids with giant backpacks and little chalkboards declaring the new grade they’re beginning.

After a summer rain storm Monday she wanted to run around on the driveway in her “princess superhero” costume. A getup of her own invention. She called herself “Super Charlotte Girl!” Her curls sprung in the humidity. She shouted to her baby doll that she dragged with her. It was her “super sidekick!” Her tiny bare feet splashed in puddles. I sat on the garage steps and watched her. “Come play with me, Mama!” I smiled, explaining I had to listen out for her sleeping brother. Just then a school bus went by. She watched it for a moment before continuing her game.

We have one more year. She has one last year of preschool before kindergarten. She will be ready. So ready. She already asks about kindergarten and when she’ll be able to read. In January I have to register her. Soon homework, standardized tests and buses will be part of her life. Don’t get me wrong, I’m so excited for her journey as a school aged kid with all its learning, slumber parties and summer camps. It will be amazing.

But for one more year Charlotte, please wear your cape and tutu in the driveway. Talk to your baby dolls like they’re real. Fall asleep in the car after a trip to the playground. Watch Sesame Street with your little brother. Carry your sparkly, cheap “Frozen” backpack. Sneak trinkets into it before I buy you a durable one that will be filled with textbooks. Finger paint. Sing songs. Get excited for cupcakes with your friends in preschool when you each turn five. Snuggle up with Daddy or me to read a book.

Most of all, be little. Be little. You only have one more year.

Monday evening my friend Jen and I had a the idea that we would take our kids to Chipotle for dinner. Our husbands were working, so why not treat ourselves to GMO-free, quick-service Tex-Mex? I pulled in to the parking lot after a quick stop to buy a toy box off of Craigslist. Relieved to have made this $10 exchange without being murdered, I was feeling good and ready for a salad.

I pulled in to what I thought was an empty parking space to find it was the “Burrito Loading Zone.” Ugh! I searched for another spot. That sign should have been a sign that this Chipotle trip was not meant to be.  By the way, who the hell faxes in their burrito bowl order?!

Anyway, I had to wake my 4-year-old who had dozed off in the car. Great. That will make bed time fantastic. She was foul and grumpy when I woke her. Promising a quesadilla and dinner with her friend did nothing to cheer her up. My 1-year-old had kicked off his shoes. I searched the floorboards as he wailed with hunger. I started sweating. I toted my thrashing son while scaring my daughter by telling her sudden death was imminent if she didn’t hold my hand in the parking lot. Did she not see all the other drivers being psyched out by the “Burrito Loading Zone” and circling the lot for a spot?!

I found Jen wrangling her one-year-old into a high chair and convincing her preschooler that the rice and beans would be good. We barely got a chance to greet one another. Oddly enough, our sweating stopped when we walked inside. My daughter whined, “I’m so cold, Mama!” Jen and I commented that the air conditioning in Chipotle was no joke. She asked if I wanted to move outside to the patio. I decided this brood needed to stay put. The thought of moving high chairs outside sounded exhausting. Plus, I had to pee. I couldn’t move outside because of my bladder. Don’t ask me why.

I think the one thing you can always count on at Chipotle is a line. I groaned as I hurried behind other customers, leaving my chilly, sobbing, hungry children to watch their friends eat. Jen pacified them with chips as I waited behind some lady who clearly had never been to a Mexican grill chain restaurant before. She was astonished to learn they had no carnitas after she learned what carnitas was. Then she had to ask why they didn’t have any. The employee yelled over the blaring Top 40 music about fair trade, sustainable, free-range pigs or whatever. Who could hear? I had to repeat my order no less than twice to each employee because they couldn’t hear me.

“Black or pinto beans?” “No beans on the salad, thanks.” “BLACK BEANS?” “NO BEANS. THANKS!”

“Guac?” “No, pico please.” “MEDIUM SALSA?” “NO, PICO DE GALLO.”

You guessed it. I had to send the salad back down the line to get pico on it. Adam Levine singing “Sugar” drowned me out and she thought I meant “No pico.” At least the music somewhat drowned out my screaming children. That was before the clerk revealed they didn’t have enough fruit for two kids’ sides. He gave one of the kids chips and the other fruit. My God, man! Do you know what that would mean?! Please! Just give them both chips!!!

At this point they can see me at the register and I pay as fast as my debit card will swipe. I get to the table and frantically open organic milk cartons and restrap the little one as he escapes his high chair restraints. Over the music I hear, “THIS ISN’T CHOCOLATE MILK!!!” I scold this spoiled behavior and mumble something about treats and sugar intake. I dunno. I had to pee really bad. My daughter said, “What!? Mommy, I can’t hear you! It’s so loud here!” She was crying as I rushed off to the bathroom. Of course the women’s room was occupied. Dammit! Come on Chipotle! It was a one-seater. I went to the men’s room. I had to. I hate doing that. Why are men’s restrooms so skeevy?

I came out quickly and started inhaling my salad. I couldn’t be in Chipotle for that much longer. The girl child stopped crying and actually ate her quesadilla. Baby boy ate some beans before he and his buddy across the table started throwing rice like it was a wedding a century ago.

I looked down and the floor was covered. Rice, beans, tortilla, chips and even some of my pico covered the floor under our table. An employee came by, looked at the mess and brought over a broom. He looked miffed at our mess. I shrugged and shouted over the music, “IT’S A BURRITO LOADING ZONE!”

This weekend my step-brother had the honor of being a “Bridesman” and standing alongside two of his best friends as they got married. This wedding had two beautiful brides.

I was going through the pictures posted on Facebook. My 4-year-old curled up next to me and asked what I was looking at. I replied, “Uncle Bryce was in a wedding this weekend. His friends got married.” I looked at her curious face as she giggled at a shot of her uncle on the dance floor with his shoes off, clearly at the end of the night.

I wasn’t sure she had ever seen a same-sex couple before. I clicked to the next picture of the wedding party. She looked for her uncle.

Would she ask me about it? Of course she would.

The next picture was a lovely shot of the happy couple. I said, “There they are. They look so happy!” She looked a little confused. She said, “They got married? Two girls can’t get married!” I said, “Yes they can! If they love each other they can. If two men love each other they can get married too.” She said, “But you’re a girl and daddy is a boy and you’re married, right?” “Right, I married Daddy because that’s who I love,” I replied. She looked at my wedding ring. “They have rings too?” I assured her they did.

She looked back at the screen and said, “Oh, okay. Mommy! I love the flowers in her hair! Can I have flowers like that?”

Boom. Same-sex marriage explained and accepted.

Congratulations Kimber and Kaylee. Blessings to your marriage.

My daughter’s cleverness never fails to amaze and amuse me. I want to write down the things she says so I will remember them. I forget so quickly. Here we go.

In the car today:

Charlotte: “Mommy, how did we get here on earth?”

Me: “You mean, humans?”

Charlotte: “Yeah.”

Me: “Well, God created us a long time ago after billions of years of the earth forming.” (I was trying to come up with some hybrid of Big Bang/Evolution/Creationism that wouldn’t be saying “I don’t know.” but, also wouldn’t be lying. Don’t judge me. Parenting is hard.)

Charlotte: “Like, we were here with the animals?”

Me: “Well, the dinosaurs were here first, but then they all went away.”

Charlotte: (Pointing at an askew road sign.) “So, is that why the sign is all tippy?”

Cue the Emoji laughing with tears. Any sign I saw the rest of the day, I imagined a dinosaur knocking it over. Isn’t that much more amazing than the likely story?

I had the windows cracked to let cool air blow on her as we sped along the road. It tangles her wavy curls and through the rear-view mirror I see her push them out of her face and giggle.

Over Taylor Swift’s latest Top 40 hit I hear, “Mommy, Snow White texted me from Hawaii!”

I laughed and said, “She did! What did she say?” That’s when my 4-year-old prattled the way she does, inventing stories in her head. Stories. Always stories. It seems fairy tales never leave her. Whether an adventure of her own making, or one she’s seen or read a million times, they are there. She acts them out. She retells them with toys. She takes well-known tales that made it to the big screen and makes them far more amazing than Hollywood could.

“Mommy, what is Hawaii like?”

Except for facts. Facts stop her fantasies. She wants to know more of them. I tell her how Hawaii is a state made of islands. I tell her about tropical beaches, rainforests and volcanoes.

“Mommy can we go there some time?”

I peek at the mirror and say, “Sure baby, when your brother gets older.”

“Mommy, when he gets older can we go to Disney World?”

Back to fantasy. She informs me that’s where the real Anna and Elsa are. She wants to know if we can meet them and all of the princesses. I assure her that there is no way we would brave the Orlando heat without making sure she got to meet her heroes.

Later I ask her what she wants to be when she grows up.

“I’m going to be an astronaut. Mommy, I’m going to go to Jupiter, where that spot is.”

I applaud her for her ambition to be the first earthling on Jupiter. She asks me what Jupiter is made of. She tells me how you can’t breathe in outer space. She names all the planets and their characteristics. She tells me how Pluto is too small to be a planet. Facts. Science. She craves knowledge.

She dresses in princess costumes while reading about animals. She stares at the sky and tells me what the clouds are made of, but tells me what shapes her imagination sees in the millions of water droplets.

Fantasy and facts. She needs both to make sense of her world. She needs both to form the stories she will surely tell us one day.

“Mommy, I’m going to be an astronaut, but a princess astronaut.”

Yes. I know.