My husband is reading a parenting book. It's the one I finished reading a few days ago, and I asked him to read it because it's the only parenting book I've been able to get all the way through. Maybe it's because the main takeaway was that as parents, we should be doing less of a lot of things. Less directing, less planning of child-centered activities, less shoo-ing kids away when they want to help. I can do less. I want to do less all the time. Less seems like an attainable parenting goal.

He's sitting on the floor, with his back against the couch, Barbie clothes and Legos scattered on the carpet all around him. The vertical wrinkles between his eyebrows are permanent now, and deepen as he tries to focus on reading through the din of our three daughters' voices as they play. He's wearing one of the girls' headbands, a pale yellow one wrapped with sparkling metallic thread.

I throw the dish towel that I'm drying my hands on over my shoulder and step away from dinner prep for a minute.

"That headband looks good on you," I say.

"Oh yeah?" He raises his eyebrows, suddenly less interested in the parenting book.

"Yeah, you look like Harry Styles." I'm not lying. He has a head of thick, wavy ash brown hair.

"Really?" he asks with a grin, closing the book.

"Mm hmm," I say. I sit on the floor next to him and nudge my nose against his cheek.

Then our three year-old runs up to us and yells, "Hey! That's my headband!" She yanks the headband off of his head along with a few hairs and runs away. My husband and I make pouty faces at each other. In the kitchen, a pot of water boils over and water cascades onto the floor.