The Ring is a diaper bag.

No, I am not kidding. The Ring holds the papers that turn a kid in Taiyuan named Zhuangzhuang into a kid in Granville named Charles Ziegert. If the kid understood what that meant in terms of his material well being, he'd want us to guard these papers like the One Ring, too.

I have told the children that the Ring is like an egg, and that at some point it will "hatch" into Charlie. They think I'm crazy, but on a two-hour flight, they'll play along with anything. I asked Kina what kind of bag she hatched from. She didn't know, so I told her she hatched from a pretty handbag with sparkles on it. She squealed. She wanted to come from a fancy lunchbox.

So I asked Kina what Caitlin, her elder sister, hatched from. She giggled. "Something girlie." Caitlin does not like girly things. She is my darling, but she's also an archer.

I told Caitlin she hatched from a hot pink quiver with orange stripes. And sequins. She squealed, too.