Tonight, tell your kid you're going to interview them...like they're famous. Grab a pen, sit down, and ask them these five questions. Then do the only thing that matters: write down their answers in their exact words. Don't fix them. Don't tidy them up. The wrong-sounding ones are the ones you'll treasure.

THE FIVE QUESTIONS

1. What's your favorite thing about our family?
2. What do you think I do all day at work?
3. What's the best day you can remember?
4. If you were in charge for one day, what's the first rule you'd make?
5. What do you love? (Let them list as many as they want.)

THE ONE JOB

Write their answers down word for word. In twenty years, a five-year-old's answer to "what do you think I do at work?" is the kind of thing you'd give anything to have kept - and tonight, it costs you a pen and ten minutes.

That's one play. There are 28 more just like it. One a day, each one caught in their own handwriting, in the exact year they were this age and thought you were magic.