By Shelby Cain
Contributor
The holiday season is upon us and with it comes get-togethers. Many, many get-togethers. Some with family, some with friends, all tons of fun. If you have young kids, these events and subsequently your children are wild. They’re up late, under supervised, and jacked up on sugar. Anything can happen. In my case, since I have two daughters, we have begun referring to these outings as Girls Gone Wild. And like the college crazed video franchise that also bears this name, there are certain occurrences that seem inevitable.
1. Clothes come off – I don’t know what it is, but every time we get together with anyone who has girls in the three to six range, the same thing happens. The kids disappear. Blissful. Too quiet. Kids re-appear. The girls have changed dresses, added more dresses, put on princess gowns, or tried on half the summer wardrobe. Sometimes the boys may lose a shirt, but I think it’s more of an over-heating issue. My condolences to the party hostess, who has to deal with the closet that looks like it served as Britney Spears’ dressing room during a major hissy-fit.
2. Blatant over-consumption – For the kids, it is the highly addictive substance known as sugar. They can’t get enough, and when you’re at a house party with plates of cookies and sweets abound, they’re guaranteed to sneak a few without you seeing. Last night we had an entire tray of chocolate macaroons go missing from the fridge. Unfortunately by the time the first guilty chocolate face reappeared it was too late. The damage had been done.
3. Bad decision-making – Stuff they would never attempt at home suddenly seems worth a try. Jumping from the fourth stair, flipping off the back of the couch, running full speed on the treadmill, eating a plate of stolen macaroons. They know these things are wrong, but the combination of being under the sugar influence and the mob mentality spurs them on. As they scamper through the kitchen in hot pursuit of the family pet (last night it was poor Beaver-Face the hamster), you think to yourself, is that flash of flesh covered in chocolate and sequins my child?
I guess I can now relate to the parents who accidentally catch a glimpse of their spring-breaking teenage daughter on one of those terrible Girls Gone Wild videos. I really hope this is the one and only time I can say that.
Happy Holidays!