Recently it struck me…just kinda out of the blue…at how absolutely and completely G does what she does at my pleasure. I don’t mean the food\clothing\shelter stuff, she could get that from a foster home. I mean all that fills her days. Last week I had to drop her off at school en route to taking Bob and Bette to the airport, and G cried and wailed helplessly. She was distraught at Granny leaving, and reached in vain for the car as I carried her into school, where I take her 5 days a week almost every week, whether she wants to or not. If she watches TV, its cause we say so. What she eats, what toys she plays with and when she plays with them, if she gets a bubble-bath or tossed in the shower, or gets attention, or gets strapped in the car and hauled off to a foreign country it is because of my and Beckie’s decisions.

Absolute power is a frightening thing.

Fortunately, G is cute and sweet and very charismatic. It makes me want to do wonderful things for her. All the time, always, and feel incredible guilt if I do not, because I could if I really set my mind to it. Every moment not making her happy is happiness I personally have stolen from her.   It takes me forever to get out of the house int he mornings cause she always gets into something fun and i don’t want to take that from her and have that be how she remembers me for the rest of the day.

This is an awesome responsibility. More weighty than providing the essentials to keep her alive, which takes nothing more than a jailer who can change a diaper. Her happiness, her disposition, her worldview are all being shaped as direct consequences of what I give her. Raising her to become a stable, well-adjusted person who has enjoyed the journey and become a good person because of it is her enslavement to us. She is clay, tabula rasa, white on white. Its staggering to contemplate. What if I spill?