I said pizza and basketball.

He said no. Basketball and pizza. He was two years old and he was absolutely certain and he was correct.

Some things have a right order. You know it when you feel it. The obsession comes first. It always comes first. The celebration follows naturally once you’ve done the thing you came here to do.

He knew this at two. I needed him to correct me before I understood it.

The title of this book is his. Most of what’s in it is his — the rituals, the vocabulary, the plushies arranged as an audience, the confetti bucket trick, the insistence on exactness. I shaped it into a story. But the story was already there. I just paid attention long enough to see it.

That’s what Little Spark is. Not a character I invented. A child I watched closely enough to write down.

Every child is like this. They arrive already knowing something. The job — the whole job — is to pay attention before the knowing fades.

Basketball & Pizza is what happens when a parent does that. Just that. Nothing more complicated than that.

Basketball & Pizza is available now at littlehollowbooks.com

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