It’s a typical evening in the Peer house. Bill is at the table, doing schoolwork on his Chromebook. Phoebe is dividing her attention between the show she is streaming and the social media on her phone, and I am sprawled on the couch awkwardly typing this column. If one of the older children calls, we place them on speaker and the whole family participates in the conversation. We are together in the same space, talking with each other, but we are totally intertwined with technology. This is a typical night, a family night even, but it makes the simple life of our early marriage seem like a fairy tale.

Once upon a time, our first house was 15 miles outside of town. It was a small log cabin in the middle of the woods, something that Hansel and Gretel might have lived in. We were young enough to see inconveniences as adventures. Our only television channels were PBS, and on a good day, one commercial channel. Cable wasn’t available and satellite TV would require harvesting a neighbor’s trees. The internet when it finally arrived was dial-up and later on, when cell phones became a thing, there was no cell service.

To our oldest child, those early years were enchanted. Chloe had a fairy garden that she tended in the backyard. She would check daily to see if her offerings of flower buds and fruit were accepted or if anything had moved. On random spring mornings, she would excitedly report that the Rhubarb Fairy (a.k.a. Doe Smalley) had left her offerings on our doorstep. Each night a CD of fairy stories would lull her to sleep. But for our little princess, the ultimate magic would come from Butterfly Tea.

The ritual would begin by taking the yellow porcelain tea set from the closet shelf. Both the pot and the cups were adorned with miniature bees, for some reason, though, this cauldron required butterflies to brew tea.

The table would be set. A song would be sung. To the best of our recollection, it went something like this, “Butterfly, butterfly, butterfly tea … Won’t you come to make some for me?” Then came the essential part of the magic. Chloe had to run two times around the house, pick some flowers if they were in season, and then hide so she wouldn’t scare the butterflies away. While Chloe was preoccupied with her responsibilities, the “butterflies” (with some human help) would assemble juice (or if desperate, sugar water) and some food coloring in the teapot.

I would suddenly exclaim, “Honey, I think the butterflies have been here.” Chloe would reappear and the tea party would begin. It was a simple trick that worked until it didn’t. School, the playground, and maturity all encroached on the childhood magic. Her willing suspension of disbelief ended one afternoon when she chose to spy rather than hide. Even then part of the charm was salvaged when she assumed my role and spun the magic of butterfly tea for her younger sister.

Our days of idyllic existence were numbered. Middle school hit hard. I was suddenly the weird mom: the one without nail polish, but full of silly ideas. Harry Potter, fantasy stories, and anything that wasn’t “real” was eschewed. The advent of cell phones meant friends would only text, not call landlines. With no cell service, what once was a haven, now felt isolated and restricted. Like Christopher Robin leaving the Hundred Acre Wood, when we moved, the enchanted forest was left behind. The porcelain tea set was boxed and tucked away in storage. Butterfly tea was no more.

Chloe is an Elementary Physical Education teacher now and checks in with me daily, sharing her student stories of the day. Wednesday was no different.

“Sweetie,” she said to her Pre-K student, “What a pretty sweater. Where could I get one?”

“Oh, you have to go to Magic Land,” the little girl replied.

“Where’s that?” Chloe asked, thinking it must be a children’s shop.

“Well, you have to go through the clouds, over the rainbow, and through the deep forest to get there, “ she explained with a serious expression.

“You know, I think I might know where to look,” Chloe replied with equal gravity.

In her memory, Chloe was a little girl again singing to the butterflies to make her tea. At that moment the belief in all things fantastic returned, allowing her imagination to make the whimsical journey. As Roald Dahl once wrote, “Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.” And everyone needs a little magic in their lives.