Flexibility is a big deal in our house. And by flexibility, I don’t mean we do dishes with our toes or back bends to pick up toys.

I mean that we try to be psychologically limber. To compromise and share.

We’re working on this with our kids. Because kids are nothing if not rigid. 

They like their routines and structure, they like their hot dogs every lunchtime for seven months straight and their Lyle, Lyle Crocodile before bed (with no veering toward something fresher, a little less tattered).

Try choosing a book that doesn’t involve a giant aquatic reptile living in New York City and Belle starts to froth at the mouth.

“Lyle!” she insists.

“Let’s try something different,” I say. “Let’s be flexible.”

But to her, my mantra, Be Flexible, comes out sounding as meaningless as “Moldy Sponge.”

“Lyle!” she wails.

“Belle…,” I say. “Moldy Sponge.”

“Lyle.”

“Moldy Sponge.”

And it goes on until I relent and read Lyle, promising myself that, the next day, I’ll hide our copy in the trunk of the car, under the spare wheel. And perhaps will park the car in an empty lot and take the bus home.

It’s the same with Milo if you dare to mix it up at mealtime. 

“But I asked for a hot dog,” he’ll say.

“Moldy Sponge, Milo.”

“I only like hot dogs.”

“Moldy Sponge, okay? In this family we try our best to Moldy Sponge.”

It becomes rote, the Be Flexible (Moldy Sponge). But we figure that if we say it 20 or 30 thousand more times they’ll start to catch on.

Either that, or we’ll be consuming hot dogs until they’re popping out our ears and reading more Lyle, Lyle Crocodile than one family should ever have to.