Yee Haw Crawdaddies II

LittleBit has a job! She has been filling out applications right and left. After we finished shopping at BigBoxStore – more accurately, after Fourthborn and Fiance had finished shopping, and I was dozing over my knitting – we stopped at first at the bookstore, because Fiance needed a new sketchbook, and they brought us out cream-based frappucinos, and then we drove to our former favorite Tex-Mex restaurant so that LittleBit could get an application.

Tim the Manager came out to give her a hug while somebody else was rummaging around for an application, and he hired her on the spot. She starts Monday after school. We are going to have to be creative about the white shirt and black pants until payday, but she has two black skirts, and Fourthborn has another, and LittleBit’s best friend may have some black slacks that fit.

Talk about answered prayers!

I went to the company’s website, and even the hourly employees have access to health insurance and 401K plans, which will be Heaven-sent once LittleBit graduates. Without insurance, her Nexium is over $150 a month if memory serves correctly.

She and I had the best talk while the kids – which is how I sort of unconsciously refer to any of my girls and their respective beloveds when we are with them or have just left them or are about to be with them, just as any siblings not present were collectively “the sissies”, as in “time to go get the sissies from school” – were finishing up their shopping. I told her that I hoped she didn’t feel like I was nudging her to the edge of the nest. And she said “Push away, I’ll start flapping, oh, not quite strong enough, better wait a few more months.” And we laughed. She knows that I don’t want to just boot her out, and I know that she won’t be moving out because she’s fed up with me or life at home or some combination of the two.

This is a miracle on the order of the loaves and the fishes, and don’t think that I’m not properly grateful. When the other girls flew the coop, there were harsh words or wounded feelings or the sort of maimed peacefulness that follows the cessation of hostilities. In at least two instances, it has taken years to arrive at a mutually respectful, balanced, and affectionate relationship. Perhaps we wouldn’t value what we have if it hadn’t taken so much effort to get here.

And I’m not naïve enough [how naïve *am* I, you ask in your best Ed McMahon voice] to believe that LittleBit’s senior year will be drama-free. She is, after all, my child. But I think this may be the time that both of us get to get it right.

And in the meantime, today is the day for six hours of church. Three in our home ward, because LittleBit is the chorister for sacrament meeting, and three more in Secondborn and Hubby’s, because BittyBubba is getting blessed. Firstborn is cooking dinner for all of us in Secondborn’s kitchen, and I baked a double batch of brownies last night before going to bed.

Good times.

And now I have to go figure out what sort of knitting project might be suitable for a ward where they are not gradually becoming used to seeing me knit in meetings. Particularly since it is also the no-longer-lamented Brother Abacus' ward. [But if he gets snippy I shall have sharp sticks in my hand, bwa ha ha, and not a jury of knitters in the world would convict me.]