Zoe loves dogs. Really all the kids love dogs but she does most especially. Once when she was not yet three years old she tried to trade me for a dog. She told me that she should get a dog and that I could get my own house away from the dog but not to worry because she would come and visit me. I am allergic. My poor children will only ever experience the joy of pets through fish and visits to friends and family with pets. At this point in my life I am not particularly disappointed that I will never own a dog or a cat. I can barely keep the six of us cleaned up and presentable, let alone throwing another the needs to eat and sleep and poop into the mix. Zoe knows this but that doesn't mean that she accepts it.
And so she has hatched a new plan to get herself a dog: ask Santa. Bizarre, I know that my eight and almost ten year old children still believe in Santa. It's a choice they have made. We have had long discussions about beliefs and why people need to believe certain things. Like how I need to believe that people are basically good, even though I know it may not be so. Zoe is smart. Smart enough to know that there is power in numbers and so she has started a campaign to convince her siblings that if they collectively ask Santa for a dog it's a near certain thing.
Avery is not so willing to give her wish to the dog. She pipes up with great authority, "I'm going to ask Santa for a baby." Here is the point in their discussion that I decide to intervene just for clarification.
"Like a brother or a sister baby?"
"Yes, like a brother or a sister baby only I think it should be a girl so definitely a sister baby." At which point Aidan interjects "HEY!!" He, being the only boy child in this family feels outnumbered and has for the past three years been trying to convince Steve and I that we should indeed have another baby so that he can have a brother (even if it turns out to be a sister? well sure, but the preference would be a brother). So Avery concedes.
"Okaaaaaaaay then, a brother baby. I'm gonna ask Santa for a brother baby." SO I ask Ruby how she would feel about having a baby living in our house and unlike previous conversations where she insists that she is the baby, she decides that it's time for there to be another baby.
For clarification, there are NO plans for more babies in this house. Our hearts are full at the moment and we don't have any pressing need to add another person to the craziness that is our life. But I can't help thinking that it is super cool that my children feel like we have room for more.
