Every so often, a milestone comes along in a parent's life that teaches a lesson. The first one begins before the birth of the first child, then another at birth, and many small ones en route to the first full night of sleep with a newborn. Over the course of time, there are countless milestones and obstacles in a parent's life that either make or break you as a parent. Sometimes they just teach you things that you can tuck away for future use, or that maybe you do not always make the right decisions.

Tonight was one of those milestones. Let me just share with you all (all 2 of you), the beauty and awe that is 8-year old girls, specifically speaking, 8 of them, which multiplied is 64. Which brings me to one of my new Uberlaws of Life: The Multiple Child Factor. When calculating the impact and damage potential of a group of small children, you must take the median age of the group, and multiply it by the number of children to get the MCF. The MCF is the actual number of people that it FEELS like you are entertaining. So, in my case.. 64 possible pieces of pizza on the floor.. 64 possible chocolate milk spills. 64 possible head traumas and dancing accidents. 64 possible headaches and 64 times I have to say "SETLLE DOWN" within the course of the 64 hours that it feels like I've been awake and shouting "SETTLE DOWN".

Now, on to the milestone.

I've learned a great many things about 8-year old girls tonight. I thought I knew it all. HA HA. Here's the top ten:

1. Little girls are fascinated by death and injury. They enjoy comparing who's grandma was hurt more in a car accident.
2. Little girls tend to learn coniving parent-fooling tactics to get out of cleaning up messes or anything else they wish to avoid.
3. Little girls always break off into cliques, and it's nearly impossible to get them all to do the same thing at the same time.
4. All little girls fart.
5. Little girls love to pretend they are farting just as much as little boys.
6. Little girls love to talk. This I knew, but never the extent.
7. Little girls that use Barbie dolls as weapons are scary.
8. Little girls do not understand the delicacy and value of electronic equipment.
9. Little girls do not understand the concept of "quiet time".
10. Little girls are not necessarily easier to manage in a group over little boys. In fact, they can be just as messy and obnoxious as any ONE boy.

Well, all I can say is.. whew.. and all that in just about 5 hours. Only 11 to go, most of which I am hoping will be eaten up in sleep.

Hmm.. I still hear thumping upstairs. I wonder how long it will REALLY take for all 8 to fall asleep. So far, I only noticed two were "out". 6 more to go...