Stuck in the Middle

We have clearly defined kid teams in this family, the bigs and the littles. Pretty self explanatory. Of course then there is girls vs boy and everyone vs Anna, we do like to mix it up for special occasions. We have recently had a new team emerge and they are full of trouble. Their team name is the Middles and their sport is big trouble. They mostly fight against each other and tattle constantly so if they are being quiet it must be investigated. I found them down by the street with a great deal of mud on and around them yesterday when I came back from a walk. Someone had been lulled into thinking they were doing something else but don't worry, he is quickly learning how much fun he will have when I go to Paris. I made the mistake of not escorting them all the way to the back of the house for a spray down and thus found them around the side throwing mud at the basement door. Well, Anna was running away and Patrick was left holding a mud ball but so far I have been right every time I assume that Anna was doing whatever Patrick was caught doing. And Patrick has a big enough vocabulary to hang her out to dry now. Years of fun ahead!

I am also stuck between having little kids and big kids. Have to get up early with the littles and stay up late with the bigs. Megan was up until after midnight last night because she obsesses about these ghost stories a boy at school keeps telling her. She believes him because he told her we have an old house and a lot of families have lived here. I did explain to her that 20 years isn't old for a house, although it is old for an air conditioner (worrying about that keeps the adults up at night), and no one died here (that I know of). We know the previous owners and I am really excited to meet the owners before them via a good friend soon but that's another tangent.

So I spend a great deal of precious free time in the evenings trying to explain to Megan that ghosts in general don't exist and specifically not in our house. I also spend a lot of time discussing Bigfoot, the Lock Ness Monster, aliens and wolves. And oh my, the discussions about the Guinness Book of World Records.... God help me if I ever meet Mr. Guinness. I have a little something special planned for ghost story boy; taking treats in next week and I'm thinking about loading his cupcake up with raisins. As a raisin hater this is pretty serious revenge. Don't worry, I am kidding but I will have some words with him. I did fix one problem Megan had with a boy at school who was being mean to her. I had her tell him that I explained to her that when boys are mean it's because they have a crush on the girl. Megan said he is being nice to all the girls now! A rare victory, I must cherish it, no doubt my last.