We were driving to Puerto Vallarta for a short vacation last week when my daughter turned around from the front seat and pointed out palm trees to my grandsons. 

“This means we’re getting close to the ocean,” she said, “because palm trees only grow near water.”

Once again, I had found myself in the back seat, squeezed between car seats that held a two-year-old and a four-year-old who tended to drip juice and drop oreos on my white shorts. 

My right leg was asleep, my left hand was sticky from the unfinished sucker that had been handed to me, and I was not suffering fools gladly. 

“Alex,” I said to my daughter rather petulantly, “that’s not true. We have palm trees right in our neighborhood.”

“We do?” she asked. 

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