I suspect that every mother of a five-year-old thinks her child is a genius. If true, then I’m in good company, but I’m convinced that the label applies to my son. Jacob has a way of seeing the world, an intuition about things that I find absolutely remarkable. It’s a trait he must get from his father, because for all my professional training, I seem not to be able to understand what’s happening to me until it’s too late.

“An excellent point and question,” I say. “Let me see . . . I have this to say for myself. First, I love my Jacob very, very much. Second, I want to hear everything—and I mean everything—that happened to him today, starting with the moment he woke up.”

I scoop my son into my arms and begin to squeeze him. He giggles and squirms, but not in a way that suggests he wants me to break the hold.

“I don’t remember what happened when I woke up,” he says when I finally let him go.

“Hm. Do you remember what happened when you came home from school?”

As he thinks about it, his eyes roll back and to the right. His little brows knit together tightly.

“Yes. I had a snack when I came home. Livie made it for me.”

Livie is our babysitter. Olivia is how she’s known outside of our family. When she joined us, Jacob was just eighteen months and he couldn’t master her four-syllable name. Hence the nickname. Livie’s a college student at Iona, charged with picking Jacob up at school and occupying him away from a screen until Stuart is done with his workday, which is never later than 4:30.

“Was it . . . peanut butter and jelly?”

“How’d you know?”

I didn’t, really. It was a guess.

“Because moms know everything.”

“And what did you have for dinner?”

He can’t remember at first. “Chicken fingers.”

“Were they good?”

“Uh-uh.”

I get up from my son’s bed and open his dresser, fishing out the pajamas on top. Ironman.

“Time to get ready for sleep,” I say, handing him his pj’s.

I put Jacob to bed so infrequently these days that my son is visibly surprised that I’m doing the honors tonight. If that weren’t enough to make me feel like the worst mother ever, my absenteeism over the past weeks—months really—is brought home when Jacob tells me that I have the ritual out of order.

“Teeth brushing, then pajamas, then story,” he says.

I correct the mistake. After he’s brushed his teeth and put on his pj’s and we’re back on his bed, I say, “What story do you want to read tonight?”

“Mike Mulligan. It’s what I always read.”