When you have a child Of A Certain Age, there are things that are unavoidable. More articulate arguments, for instance. It’s a sad, sad day when you can’t deflect with a well-placed “oh look, a bird!” (Oh how I miss the easily distractable days.) Out-and-out sneakyness. Eye-rolling. Detective-level suspicion.
It’s fun, having a kid this age. I’m telling you.
But the thing is, nothing has the staying power to irritate me all day, every day like… sparkles.
A kid Of A Certain Age is really into sparkly stuff. Artwork will be liberally festooned with glitter and glue. They even make glitter glue. And then you throw into the mix a holiday and the sparkle factor goes up to 10 and then past that to blow the top off the scale.
Because a holiday– like, say, Christmas — allows even the adults to get in on the sparkly act. Holiday decorations, clothing, cards — it all has sparkles on it. And those sparkles come off on your hands, they float through the air, and they land on every conceivable surface.
Y’all, I’ve got glitter everywhere. I’m not kidding. On top of Spawn’s numerous and messy art projects, I have grown-up sparkle all over. All it takes is one holiday card or ornament to start the process, and it’s all over the furniture, the floor, my clothes, me, the car, the cats, Spawn’s head, you name it. I eat it for breakfast. No matter how often I vacuum or wipe up, it’s there.
And it takes months to finally eliminate it from the house.
The super-fine sparkly stuff, especially, should be banned. I’m just saying.
Personally, I like for my sparkles to be of a certain carat weight.
— Mox
Middleground 