Dinner Party

So we went to an old friend's for dinner. Supposedly there were supposed to be some class reunion angles to this, though events conspired to constrain the guests in attendance to a group than never really dis-unioned after high school. Not that we necessarily see each other all the time, day in and day out, but we stayed in touch.



Over the years, had dinner together, kept up on each other's careers, etc. Attended one another's marriages and divorces except the one who was too smart to get married in the first place.

And it was great. Two kinds of kick-ass lasagna, a veritable herd of children considering only two of three couples present had offspring at all, fun conversation and flinging of toddlers.



And Mo did her usual kleptomaniac thing. She has guys at home, whenever we're visiting someplace with guys, she wants to get them all out to check out. But at the end she wants to take some with her.



And grandparents and friends are inclined to concede a toy or two out of a huge box of Happy Meal prizes and such, but this is a constant battle. You don't take things that aren't yours, that's a pretty central parenting lesson to pass on. So when the answer is no, and anymore I always insist the answer is no because I'm trying to get the point drilled in to Mo's head, and Mo does things like try to smuggle toys to the car on the sly, or fills her pockets with toys as if I won't see the bulges and turn them inside out, I have to keep at it.



It's not about whether the toy is worth much, they're often things the host doesn't know why they kept. Not always, but often. The point is about boundaries and rules.