Nugget

I pick Lyla up from school, and Julie always wants to know how she did.

"Good."

She wants to know more than that. See, when Julie gets home from work, she recounts the highs and lows of her day with a level of detail and enthusiasm that boggles the mind. If I created sock puppets of her colleagues, I believe she would use them.

So when Julie asks me how Lyla did at school, she expects a narrative, not "Good."

We argued a little about how I should go about teasing information out of Lyla's teachers at the end of each long, tiring day. I think Julie half expected that they should automatically share highlights when I walk in the door. "Dan! Lyla spit up on the triangle block today. She also hit Bobby's head with a book. Ooh ooh, and she crawled a lot!"

"I don't need every detail," Julie conceded, "but I want a nugget every day."

"Just one?"

"One good nugget."

"I can ask them for a nugget each day."

"A good nugget."

"A good nugget. How was your day?"

"Oh my gosh! Well!"

And she was off.