In some ways, I feel like I’ve had a head start on Chris in the parenting arena. After all, as the second of six kids, I had a lot of childcare under my belt when I married him. When Kyra was born, Chris changed his very first dirty diaper. For me, it was probably like the five thousand, eight hundred, and seventy-fourth dirty diaper. When her paci hit the floor, he would rinse it off before giving it back to her, while I would simply quote the five second rule. While he was making people sanitize their hands before holding her, I was thinking about how she would probably eat dirt by the handful before she was two.
So, I try to keep that in mind. I have had a bit of an advantage.

This brings us to last night. We took the kids to the local Christmas parade. It was cold, the parade was mediocre, but the candy was flying towards us with full force. We also had the presence of mind to find a place at the beginning of the parade. That meant that we stood in the cold for less time, and all of the good candy had not yet been thrown. So, we took home a gallon sized ziploc bag full of candy.

Last night, Kyra and Elijah helped themselves to a piece of candy each from the bag of candy. Kyra was all set to enjoy her nasty, strawberry-flavored piece of holiday hard candy, and Elijah was holding out a peppermint to be unwrapped. I told him that he couldn’t have hard candy, because he might choke. I sent Chris to get him some sort of chewy candy. The next thing I knew, Elijah was enjoying a mouthful of Snickers bar.

I looked at Chris like he was nuts, and spoke slowly and clearly so he would understand. “Chris…Honey. We are the parents. They are kids. We get the good candy. They get Tootsie rolls, broken suckers, and those hideous holiday hard candies.”

He just looked at me.

Ameteur!