IT'S NOT FOURTH OF JULY, BUT I STILL LOVE YOU IN THE MORNING.

Maybe you have a child whose first words in the morning are "I love you."

Perhaps you have a child whose first words in the morning are "I'm hungry."

Or even a child who cracks their eyelids and says something adorable, like "I dreamed I was riding on a lion and drinking a chocolate milkshake while we jumped over a waterfall."

But I'd be a little surprised if you had a child who, after usurping bed real real estate for a good portion of the night, opened his eyes in the half dark and announced, with zero context:

"I don't like Leonard Cohen."

I rolled my eyes on the too-early dawn. "You're LEARNING to like him, kid."

"I don't like him,"
he repeated.

His smile in the terrible a.m. blackness mirrored the moon; with inimitable mischief and glee. Independence is so frustrating when it's directed at you. Now I can sympathize with England 200+ years ago.