Assuming she wants one!

Then I will tell her the following story. If she doesn’t find it funny, then I didn’t tell it correctly.

We were away for Shabbat, visiting friends who used to live down the block from us but lit out for the suburbs when they were expecting their second baby. The kids had a great time, especially Miss M, who had the run of the playroom (full of toys and paraphernalia that goes with girls who are 5 and 7–kitchen! dollhouse! princess dress up clothes!) and the basement (trampoline!) and a horde of other guest kids to play with (ranging in age from 4 to 10) on Shabbat afternoon.

Taxman and D got to relive their pre-child years for a single hour on Saturday night, when J and I magnanimously allowed them to go out bowling while we fed the kids dinner. Finally, an hour past normal bedtime and dressed in sweats, Miss M and AM were trundled back into the car, where they fell asleep on the Cross Island Parkway and graciously transferred to their own beds without protest.

Until 6:30 the following morning. When Miss M was horrified to realize that she had slept in her clothes. “Ema,” she wailed, “I’m not wearing pajamas!” We tried, in vain, to reassure her that it was ok, that she had been wearing comfortable clothes, that she had slept all night without waking up. “I didn’t sleep in pajamas!” she shrieked, absolutely beside herself. 

So, after a potty trip awash in tears, she opened her top dresser drawer and gratefully pulled on a pair of pajamas. “I have pajamas on,” she said, all smiles. “Now,” she demanded, crawling into bed with me, “I want to nurse.”*

* This, of course, set off AM, who feels that my breasts are solely his property, despite daily evidence to the contrary.