We were playing Monopoly again tonight (E’s choice), and E was having a hard time of it. He really didn’t have any property, and he was landing on L’s or my property fairly regularly. He soon grew fussy.

“I never win at this game!” That sort of thing.

L and I kept encouraging him to continue, but he was reaching a point of frustration that seemed like it might overwhelm him. And then he landed on one of the two orange properties that he was missing.

“I’m buying it!”

I glanced at my own marker: I was standing on the final orange property he would need.

I turned to L, who is always our banker, and said, “Oh shoot, I forgot to buy that property.” I looked her dead in the eye, hoping she would realize what was going on.

“Oh, you wanted to buy that?” She grabbed the card and traded it for a little cash.

I turned to E: “I’ll sell it to you.”

The point of the story is not helping the Boy like that. The point is L’s reaction. There was no “That’s not fair!” There was no immaturity. There was the simple understanding that we were going to try to help the Boy in some little way because his seven-year-old patience had reached just about the end of it.

“Our little girl is growing up,” I said to K when I told her about it later in the evening.

In the afternoon, he’d brought in some wisteria blossoms and declared, “I’m going to make some perfume!