“Mom, Dad, who’s the most famous writer?”

My six year old greeted us with this question this morning as he crawled into our bed.

“Hmm,” I said. “I think maybe William Shakespeare. What do you think, momma?”

“Aren’t we just talking about living writers?” she asked.

“Okay,” I propped myself up on my elbow. ”then I guess it’s got to be Stephen King or J.K. Rawlings.”

“I’m not sure. I think it depends on what you mean by famous.”

“I think it’s Van Gogh,” our son chimed in.

“He wasn’t a writer,” I said.

“He painted,” my wife added.

“He wrote his name, didn’t he?”

“I guess so,” I answered. “He signed his paintings, I think.”

“So he was a writer.”

True. These are the sorts of discussions that I handle better later in the day. I think that might be why he hits me with them at the crack of dawn.