Scout likes to watch reruns of "Supernanny" while we eat dinner—"I like to see kids being bad"—and God forgive us, some evenings we acquiesce.

Last night's Hapless Mother was failing at playing diplomat between her Out of Control Kids.

"That woman needs to add two words to her vocabulary," I muttered into my wine glass, thinking the word "vocabulary" would throw the six-year-old.

"Tough gazotts?" Scout said.*

* Tough gazotts was my mother's term (it sounds Hebrew but it isn't) for—well, you know what it was for. And it's my term, too; in fact, I'm not sure that, without it, I'd be able to handle parenting at all. (Another good thing Mom used to say when we complained of some unfairness: "It all works out in the Great Cosmic Wash.")