The author’s storytelling daughter, kindergarten age.

My daughter has an extremely active imagination. She always has. She began talking at a very young age, always entertaining us with stories and songs. When she was really little, we played a sort of Baby Mad Libs game with her, where we told the bulk of a story, letting her fill in the details. As she grew older, she took over the role of storyteller for herself, interrupting us more and more, until finally the story became completely her own.

By the time she started kindergarten (she’s nine now), she was spinning elaborate tales about everything from her beloved toys to her daddy’s co-workers and their various pets. And naturally, as former English majors and general language enthusiasts (also: nerds), my husband and I were thrilled our daughter seemed to have such an vibrant inner world.

However. (You knew there had to be a “however,” didn’t you?)

Then she started school. For (gasp!) two hours a day. There were now two hours a day when she wasn’t in my presence, and that was very hard for me ... I like to know things! So after school, I would ask her a lot of questions to try and piece together a version of her school life – because I’m nosy, sure, but also because I’m her mama and I desperately wanted my baby to be OK at school. I wanted to know whether she was interacting with her teachers and the other kids, or if she was sitting alone in a corner. Was she respectful as we’ve taught her to be, or was she running rampant, poking other kids in the eye?

I tried to rein the questions in, I really did, but even at 65 percent intensity, there were still a LOT of questions getting fired her way (gently, subtly, nonchalantly, LOVINGLY, of course.) And when I wasn’t getting vague, one word responses (which is what most parents seem to get), I was getting … stories. And this is where my daughter’s love of storytelling – the thing I enjoy and celebrate so much – came back to haunt me.

Because, according to my daughter, she attended school with 1,000 other kids (in her classroom alone), walked to the library every single day by herself (where there was only one lonely book on a really big shelf), and played on a “caterpillar playground,” complete with leaves to eat, a cocoon to crawl inside of, and wings to wear when you become a butterfly.

I went back and forth between annoyance at my thwarted inquiries and admiration for her attention to detail. Eventually I gave in to the fact that most kindergarteners don’t do detailed daily recaps. Not even my precious snowflake.

And honestly, I just went ahead and let myself believe that last part about the butterflies.