For some reason, acorns fascinate N. I don’t know why. Wherever he goes, whatever he’s doing, he always stops in his tracks when he sees an acorn. He collects them, washes them, plays with them.

I just don’t get it.

The other day I noticed him clutching a ziplock bag of acorns as I put him in his carseat to go to school. I explained to him that he would have to leave them in the car. He was not allowed to bring them into school with him. He agreed with surprising readiness. Surprised at the lack of resistance to my ruling, I gave him a hug and said goodbye.

When he came home that night, however, I heard a surprising tale. It seemed that the little guy had also been in the habit of collecting acorns on the playground. He was allowed to keep one or two, but no more than that. The rest were, as the teachers said, “for the squirrels.”

As his momma was picking him up, one of the teachers pointed out the little guy’s socks to her.

They were full of acorns. He was smuggling the acorns out of the playground in his socks.

Curious, later that night, I snuck out to the car and checked his carseat. Sure enough, there was an empty ziplock bag on it. He wasn’t just smuggling acorns out of school. He was also smuggling them in.