Whilst I hurriedly poke around their backpack’s organising their day, I catch myself every once in a while and I smile. Whilst other parent’s are filling their kid’s backpacks with raw vegetables and crackers, bananas and chips, water and the odd candy, I am breaking the rules. As a parent, I understand that what I fill their bags with is more than just the intake of food and drink. I know that the empty pockets have loads of room for goodies, besides filling their bellies, and I secretly begin to stuff them. I load them with handfuls of imagination and stories of dragons . . . especially the powerful ones and I lead them on wild goose chases, where we stalk the shadow people. I add a few encounters with dragon flies to see if they can catch them and I then, make sure that they know the biggest secret of all . . . A secret so enchanting. It is the one where rocks actually move, if you are not looking at them. I know they will spend many hours trying to trick the rocks but one day they may get it right!  I place a vivid memory in their backpack, the one where they climb up a mountain and watch the valley below for a sign from above and they strengthen their self trust. I recognise that they may want to climb trees, but I make sure that they know about the giant that lives in the topmost branches, for he may want their apple, and they fortify their resolve. I tuck a quick trip into a forest, in a zipper and hope that they will find the itchy witchy folk hiding there and I pretend that I saw nothing. I fill the last nook and cranny with juicy rainbow slugs and warn them that they will change colour if they eat one. They eat one . . . and I am blessed to know that they have the colours of the rainbow to guide them and change them, and whilst they are learning mathematics and languages, they will invite the itchy witchy folk to join them. And they do . . .