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If L's clothes have pockets she comes home with rocks. She rolls them carelessly among her fingertips like men jingling change. Sometimes she presents them with great ceremony: Mama, I got these for YOU! But by then, they're already an afterthought. The appeal for L in the rocks is in the acquiring, not in the keeping.

I started to put a load of laundry in the machine when I heard the sound. Normally I just empty her rocks into the garbage can that sits right across from the laundry closet but tonight I decided to try something different. "L," I called, "come do something with these." I was curious to see what would happen.

Okay, Mama! She filled her round fists. I got the laundry started and went to tidy up the dining room. There, on the sideboard, on top of the clean serving dishes I was just about to put away, she had discarded her collection.

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A couple of weeks ago at school one of the teachers was discarding a bunch of old office supplies when E stopped her. Can I have those? she asked. "Sure, I guess," said her teacher, handing her a pair of thick, old, dirty rubber bands, the industrial ones that might be wrapped around a bulk mailing or other heavy bundle.

She wears them every day as bracelets, fully knowing that they are not bracelets. And she named them, of course. I say, "c'mon, E, are you ready yet?" And she'll say, I'm coming! I just have to get my Mr. and Mrs. Rubberband!

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G spent all day crawling around clutching a pair of his sister's rainbow-striped underpants. I don't know where he got them, and I don't know if they're clean or dirty.