I get greeted with the same question every morning as I am making breakfast. Sometimes it is said in a quiet voice down the hall and other times it is yelled from the top of the stairs.

“Can you not know that I’m awake?”

This is Baby E’s request each day. It doesn’t matter to him if we have clearly already had a conversation, or if he knows that I know he is awake. What matters to him is that when he walks into the kitchen I say, “Good morning, Baby E!” as if it’s the first time I’ve seen him that day and give him a huge hug- the same way every day.

And so I oblige, because why not? When he calls down to me and asks me to not know that he’s awake, I yell back up to him that I don’t know that he’s awake and he sneaks into the kitchen for his big reveal.

It’s an odd tradition and I can’t even remember how it started, but it’s our thing now and I look forward to it each morning.