Keeper of the Sprinkles.

Olivia started crying in bed a few nights ago.  Just hysterically screaming, so I finally went back to find out what the commotion was about.  I immediately wished I hadn't.

"I was looking at this book, (holding up If You Give a Mouse a Cookie) and I saw these cookies.  And then I realized, I dooon't have annny coooookiessssssss!!"

And then she dissolved into a fit of tears.

What am I to say in such an instance?  What could possibly comfort this child, short of bringing her a cookie, which I was absolutely not going to do?

So I improvised.

"Hey!  I have an idea.  Maybe tomorrow we can go to the store and get stuff to make sugar cookies.  Then we can decorate them!  Won't that be fun?"

Sniffles.  A stifled sob.  "Um.  Y-y-yes.  But.  But.  I stilllll want a cooookieeee!!!"

And then I got desperate.  I will just tell you, somehow she wound up clutching two containers of sprinkles and being deemed the Keeper of the Sprinkles (I wish I were kidding right now).  She had to promise to keep those sprinkles safe and IF she could do that, we would be making cookies in the morning.

Seriously, I gave a child two easily-opened containers of sprinkles overnight on sheer trust that she wouldn't open them, consume them, and make a gigantic rainbow mess all over her bed.

But it worked (and the longer I parent, the more I realize the value of simply doing what works).

She slept.  She kept her sprinkles safe and brought them proudly to me the next morning.

So we made sugar cookies.

She told me they tasted like heaven and joy.

 We FINALLY got some snow last night, so Olivia spent a couple hours rolling around in it.  What is this winter doing??  No snow until the end of January?  I'm worried this means we'll have winter until July.

Emily and the crazies.

Thomas.

O and my dad.

The end.