There are things you know about your children.

The givens, I call them.

Like, if Isabella is spelling it, it will be spelled wrong about 98% of the time.

A given.

Like, how every single morning I will find a giant blue solo cup half-filled with water, with a straw in it on my kitchen table.

It’s an Isabella given.

Like, how if it’s Isabella’s turn to pick a movie it will surely be about zoos. We’ve got Zookeeper and We Bought a Zoo on rotation around here.

Animal given.

And how Isabella is AN ARTIST. Even as a toddler, her preschool drawings always stood out from the other children’s—they were full of colors and shapes and teeny, tiny intricate detail. There was the time she built an entire camp for mermaids out of modeling clay, and that time she built a stage—with overhead lighting from a small flashlight—for her my Little Ponies…out of an old box.

And then there was last night.

I know you put me to bed, Mama, but well, I made a snowglobe.

You made a snowglobe in bed? Who are you—Buddy the Elf? Haha. Isabella. You are so funny. Go back to bed.

No, really. I made a snowglobe. Out of that jar of lentils that you are never going to use.

Wait. What? Isabella! Is that real water in there? Did you get it out of your fish tank??

Look! Let me shake it and show you!

Sweetie. It’s lovely. It’s also, like, 17 hours past your bedtime. Can you please go to bed AND promise me that you’ll never do any sort of arts and crafts that involve liquids in your bed again?

I can go to bed. But I make no promises about crafts in my bed.

Because that’s just another given with her—no  promises about arts and crafts.