At the 4th of July parade Monday, passer-bys in floats threw candy at the hoards of children, who scurried to nab as many tootsie rolls and dum-dums as they could before older, larger children swooped in. In a moment I am not proud of, I actually stepped on the stick portion of a dum-dum before a rather fat, vulturous child could pick it up in order to give it to Ella, who had chosen that moment to stare blankly at the sky.
When we got home, Ella had four pieces of candy while Caleb had half a bag full. I combined all four bags of candy, put it in a large bowl, and have been rationing it out at various points during the day.
“That’s not fair," complained Caleb. "That’s MY candy. Why are you doing that?”
“Well, it’s not fair that younger or slower kids should suffer because you were greedy and would not share. Sometimes moms have to even out the playing field. This is the decent thing to do."
“I think that’s communism, mom.”
What really concerned him was that I had chosen to become a communist on Independence Day of all days. I explained that I’m only a communist on parade days- and Halloween. The rest of the year, I aim for benevolent dictatorship.
“That’s fascism, mom.”
Whatever.
Happy 4th of July just the same!
4 comments:
Hope you had a good 4th despite all the communism and fascism.
Carter's favorite part was all the candy, too. I think I'm even worse than you - I put all the holiday candy in the cupboard - and so Carter forgets about it and Bob ends up eating it all. So, what does that make me? Probably way worse than a communist of fascist.
From such small childhood conversations are attorneys for the Cato Institute formed.
All good parenting is benevolent dictatorship! Way to go Caleb for thinking outside the square I reckon.
AHAHAHAHAH!!!
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