I’ve mentioned before that I grew up with many cousins.  One in particular was my partner-in-crime, and her name is Jayme.  We were OK gals until we got together.  At those times, we didn’t have to look for trouble, as trouble seemed to find us.  We played at the exclusion of all others, at the expense of all others,  24 hours a day until we passed out from play overload.  As of Thursday, my Jayme/Lori Karmic bill came due.

After growing weary Thursday of lecturing Sara and Avery on including Kelly in their games, I set them up with an art project, with CLEARLY stated parameters.  I then rounded the corner to read to Kelly.  I returned to find them walking through a mixture of glue and glitter, attempting to make footprints in the foyer.  Messy?  Not even close.  Messy were the glitter/glue hand prints on the walls and all over the bathroom.  This tomfoolery smelled of only one little princess, and her name is SARA.  Per Avery’s usual MO, her clothes were spotless.  I had to soak her feet and hands, but her clothes were ready for Prom.  There is NO WAY Rooster Saucy La La came up with this stunt.  Just by looking at them that morning I could predict that if Sara had a pack of cigarettes, she would have turned Avery into a pack-a-day’er by sundown.

That evening, both girls got respective parental lectures about playing with Kelly and making messes.  I should record Sara’s lecture on some kind of repeat-feed tape recorder, because telling Sara to stop making wildly unpredictable messes is just a waste of everyone’s time.  To Sara, a mess is only a means to a very rational end.  A Sara Rational End.  Avery’s Parent Pow-Wow was far more interesting:

Aunt Jenny: Avery honey, Sara is…creative.  She comes up with some creative ideas.  Someday, those ideas are going to be amazing and she’ll do some neat things with her ideas.  BUT, right NOW, some of those ideas might be….a little messy.

Avery: Mommy, sometimes Sara has BAD ideas.

Aunt Jenny: Well, that’s one way of putting it.  If Sara comes up with one of her ideas that you think in your head isn’t what you would normally do, you should run it by Aunt Orly.

Avery: YES.  I SHOULD.  I will DO THAT.

And then sweet Little Avery went to bed and woke up with a long list of new ways to play with Baby Kelly.  I could just hug her.

But Miss A has surprises of her own.  The girls like to play in my shoes, and I walked into my closet last week to find Avery easily strutting about in 4 inch stilettos.  I gasped….

Mommy: AVERY NO!  Oh heavens!  You might break your ankle!

Avery, looking quite confused: Don’t you wear these shoes Aunt Orly?

Mommy: ONCE Avery.  ONLY ONCE.

I’m a lot of things these days, but bored isn’t one of them.  I cannot complain.  As I scrubbed the walls I could only think one thought:  I’m due.  Jayme and I pulled Cousin Itty-Bit (not her real name, but her real size) through the woods while she was recovering from chickenpox.  Or measles.  Or something equally horrible.  She said she was too tired, but we told her she was a wimp if she didn’t follow us.  Then we got lost.  Really, really lost.  I hope Jill (aka Itty-Bit) is reading this post, because she’d see that the Universe is ultimately fair.  28 years late, but fair.