Other People's Kids

Rapidly Developing Crisis

We've now gotten used to our new charge, at least to a degree. She's quite a girl, and we're happy to have her. We actually had a court hearing yesterday, and she'll be here until further notice...probably several months at least.

She is, however, a teenager...and as such, she's likely to have periods where she's bored out of her skull. Today she got to go with The Wife and shop for some new clothes. She came with a pretty limited supply, and no kid of ours is going to have a skimpy wardrobe, even if they aren't our kid. So there.

Anyway, the crisis now brewing is that she has invited several friends over for New Year's Eve festivities. The Wife is madly creating pizza, we have movies, and life is good...but what am I now? How do I act? What's my role?

Should I be the calm, reserved father figure that everyone looks to for authority? Right. Good one. Should I be joe normal, who happens to be the guy "Josie" has to stay with? Probably closer. Or should I just be the guy who's handing out pizza? Why, yes. Yes, I think I will. I like the difficulty factor on that one. I suppose I'll figure out how to behave once we actually have kids in the house.

But I do like that they're coming over here, because no way is "Josie" going out tonight on her own. Not a winged rodent's chance in the sinister hot place. While she was visiting her mom this afternoon we watched the movie "Thirteen". Consequently, she may never be allowed out of the house again. Yeesh.

But her friends are all most certainly welcome to visit here, so long as they haven't given us a reason to kick their scrawny little butts out of the house and so long as "Josie" keeps up the good behavior.

Eep! They're here. Gotta go mingle.

posted by Dan @ 5:35 PM