Beloved just remarked that I am a “better person” than he, because I have 4 girls in my care today. Four real girls — not my 2 girls acting like weird people I don’t know. Each of my girls have a friend over.
But this is not a problem. This is better than it would be if only 3 girls were here, and likely better than if I had just my 2. It’s not that I’m a good person, it’s that I’m a good planner! They each have a friend. No one is feeling left out, no one is being shunned, no one is forced to try and blend in with their younger/older sister and her friend.
See, a good thing.
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Update: I spoke way too soon. I have a mob in my house. A mob, I tell you. First, they come up with the grand scheme that I will take them all to a toy store, and buy them all TOYS. Huh? These toys. Since when is my job to take kids out and buy them toys? They’re supposed to be playing. We planned a trip to the pool. They were gonna bring bikes. We didn’t plan to buy them all TOYS.
Of course, I said, “Absolutely not. Do not even raise it again. There is no way we are doing that.”
Next brilliant plan: A lemonade stand.
My kids have wanted to do this so many times, and every time I say no. This time, I decided NOT to say no, but to require them to think the entire thing through. All four of them went into the bedroom and came up with a plan. I donated all the cash I had to the endeavor: $5. Oooh, big spender (at least it isn’t TOYS). The older girls just left to buy lemonade mix, the younger girls are making a sign.
I don’t think it’s a bad thing. They’re all working together, and thinking it through. They’re busy and focused.
And they’re old enough that I have no problem saying, “hey, I’m doing laundry, y’all work it out on your own!”
At least they stopped asking me for toys.
Toy creators are making me crazy over here! What ever happened to plain old stuffed animals? You know, the kind that don’t have a virtual double life and require a password. Oy!
No kidding! I had to teach my 9 year old the concept of a “password notebook” because she kept getting locked out of the websites.
Fortunately, the reason she was getting locked out was because she would only think to log on once every 2-3 weeks.
Lemonade mix?!? Whatever happened to squeezing all the lemons by hand? (Although these days that’d probably be too expensive.) Hope they have fun.
You know, they wanted to do real lemons. But you must remember 1) I do not have a car, and 2) I was unwilling to help (I had laundry in the dryer!) or fund a major investment. They could not have carried back that many lemons on their own. Also, the chances of it coming out good with lemons and sugar were pretty slim. Also, I didn’t want lemon juice squirting all over my house. We’re going away for the weekend, and the DAY we get back, I host book group.
They can try, one day, to make lemonade with real lemons. Just not right now.