It's my baby's 8th Halloween. Ack! Sometimes she seems so grown-up and other times, she seems downright helpless. This morning she asked me to help her get her tights on. "When you're off at college, will you still need me to do this?" I asked, gathering up each leg of the tights and sliding them over each foot in turn. "I'll have to show up at your dorm. 'Oh, hi! I'm here to help my daughter with her tights.'" She shrugged. I actually don't think it would bother her at all.
I asked her if she wants to walk for trick-or-treating this year. "No, you can pull me in my wagon," she responded. "I might walk when I'm 13." I don't mind, though. I have some
On the way home from work yesterday I was driving behind a van that had a set of those stick figure decals. I'm sure you've seen them - they depict the family that owns the vehicle. Sometimes even the family pets are included via stick figure. Anyway, this particular vehicle seemed to have an awful lot of stickers on the back window. There was a mom and dad, as expected. It took me a few moments to count the children, though. SEVEN. SEVEN CHILDREN (plus three cats). I just cannot even begin to imagine. We can barely handle the one tiny taskmaster who lives in our house. When you have that many children, do you just let the little things go? I'm assuming that all of the stuff we hound our daughter about ("Turn off the light when you leave the bathroom. Don't leave the empty wrapper on the table - what do you think the garbage can is for? Did you brush your teeth? Why are you naked?") . . . just sort of flies out the window. With that many kids, I imagine that one would just focus on keeping them all alive each day and not worrying so much about whether they've made their beds. I'm going to try not to think about it too much. I have issues with clutter and I think that's why the universe knew I could handle only one child.
And now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to make my daughter work the streets until she gets me a Peppermint Patty.
