We had some visitors stay with us a few weeks back. During their stay, the boys were relocated from their room to ours. They didn’t mind the relocation. To the contrary, they were really excited about it.

The first night, however, they really didn’t want to go to bed. After several failed attempts to get them to quiet down, we finally managed to close the door on them.

Ten minutes later, my oldest ran out of the bedroom and into the den where we were all chatting.

“What are you doing?” I asked. “Aren’t you supposed to be in bed?”

He stopped, frozen  in classic deer-in-the-headlights pose. He opened his mouth, and then sighed, shook his head, and slumped back to the bedroom.

I guess he’d forgotten to prepare his excuse ahead of time.