My kids are playing on the floor as I carry out my online routine.

Carolyn is mixing and matching from different Lego sets in order to create characters from the “Magnificent Blimpship” steampunk bedtime stories I’ve been telling her.

She aims Captain Rod Gearhart’s gun at her brother’s minifigure.  “I just killed you.”

“No, I killed you,” Peter retorts.

“But I killed you first!”

“I killed you first!”

This goes on for some time.

Finally I turn on them, with a voice registering about 7 or 8 on the “parental authority” scale: “Children, please play together nicely, and take turns killing each other.”

Peter notices that I cracked a smile before I finished the line, but Carolyn pauses to think about the conundrum.