Only Children CAN Share!

I am an only child.  My husband is an only child.  Really.  

We have two children, and are continually shocked about the non-stop bickering in our home.  A level of conflict that makes Boehner and Obama look like they should be slurping up opposite ends of a strand of spaghetti.   

Most of the conflict is about sharing. Something that should be so simple, so fair.  So effing natural.  Something that we teach kids makes the world go round. Something that makes both giver and the recipient happy. Something on which our freaking survival as a species depends.  

But sharing is often impossible with little people -- it goes against their every primitive little instinct. They play by their own set of rules, expecting to be shared with, but not to share pro-actively.  And if Child A wants to play with a toy Child B has all but declared dead, suddenly that once-ignored toy is the most beloved thing Child B has ever owned.

Now people are always going on and on about only children being so selfish and spoiled, part of the implication being that they don't have to practice sharing on a daily, minute by minute level.

Maybe so. Legend has it, I used to ask my mother to hide certain toys when my cousins came over.  But eventually I stopped that shit.  As an only child, you realize you'd better be a damn good friend to people, unless, of course, you want to grow into the type of person who is sad and bitter that she cannot dine at a restaurant. With her cats. 

So on behalf of only children everywhere, I am going to share away.  

But first I have to share some news.  I am going to be published in a book!  One with actual pages!  One you can take into the bathroom, if of course you can get a moment's peace.  

Here's the cover!

Is that not the best title ever?!

I am pee-my-pants thrilled to be featured in Jen's anthology.  Jen is the author of the wildly popular blog, People I Want to Punch in the Throat.  Not only am I in her book, but I get to keep company with some of the hottest mom-bloggers out there!  I'm doing Russian splits and switch leaps.  (Internally at least, I'm not warmed-up and am 40 years old.  Such shenanigans would wind me up in the hospital.)

Not only am I going to share some news, but I am going to share the awesome awesomeness that is the writing of some of the bloggers in I Just Want to Pee Alone (these posts are not in I Just Want to Pee Alone obviously)

In Check Please, Bad Parenting Moments discusses the "elation" of dining out with kids.  In Dinner for Two, I Think Not, Nurse Mommy Laughs, shares a dining request that is more Six Feet Under than Lettuce Entertain You.  

Hollow Tree Ventures has a nerveracking chat with her young daughter about something that rhymes with scampons.  Also in the vein of feminine embarrassment, House TalkN describes a steamy Hot Tub scene gone all wrong.

Then there are the lessons. Funny is Family (my new bloggy crush) shares some life learnin' from college that had nothing to do with a professor, and You're My Favorite Today tells all of us parents of small children what we should NOT be stressing about.  

And on that note, I'm sure You're My Favorite Today would tell me they figure out the sharing thing eventually.  All we can do is try to guide them as much as we can.  If I feel out of my league, I'll call in the union refs, and while I'm waiting for their sage advice, I can plop my ass on the sofa and tune into to yet another episode of The Sibling Scuffle.   

Note: This blog post was brought to you by an only child who was happy to share.