'Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving

I'm something of a rock star to children. They love me ever so much. And I love them. I want a bunch of my own someday.

Last night, my younger siblings and some of the younger cousins decided to sleep at my grandmother's house, and I decided to join them.

It's been years since I graced a cousin sleepover with my presence. I guess that's why, when I laid my sleeping bag next to little Pixie Cousin's, she got inordinately excited.

She stuck her face next to mine and gave me a beatific smile. "Now we're really close to each other!"

I don't think anyone's said that to me before. If they have, they did not sound anywhere near as happy about it as Pixie Cousin did. So I was extremely flattered/gratified, and I returned her smile willingly.

Soon everyone was settled in bed. We of course did not fall asleep right away, because what kind of a sleepover would that be? W stayed up chatting with each other instead.

"I can't fall asleep," Pixie Cousin said mid-conversation.

"Try counting sheep," I suggested.

"I'll count the lights," Pixie Cousin said, referring to the light fixtures on the ceiling. "One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve."

There were only six light fixtures; she'd counted them twice. I grinned into my pillow.

After a while, nature took its course, and everyone began to get a little sleepy.

"Count the lights with me," Pixie Cousin whispered as my eyelids began to sag.

No problem, I figured. She thinks there are twelve lights. It'll be quick and easy to count to twelve.

"-nine, ten, eleven, twelve," I counted with Pixie Cousin.

There was a pause. "Thirteen," she prompted me.

"Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen...twenty-five, twenty-six," we counted together.

How high could she possibly count?

"-thirty-one, thirty-two, thirty-three--what was that?" I asked, partly because I'd heard something outside and partly to distract from the counting.

It turned out there were some loud hotshot teenagers roaming the streets. It was distracting, but not distracting enough to last.

"Thirty-three." Pixie Cousin poked my neck with four of her fingers.

We counted those six light fixtures over and over, well into the hundreds. And then we counted them again.

With each number, I grew more and more tired. At each lag in my counting, Pixie Cousin would wait patiently for me to continue. If I didn't, I'd feel her little fingers poking me and hear her high-pitched whisper, "Sixty-three." Or "twenty-one." Or whatever number we happened to be on.

Eventually, thankfully, we both fell asleep. When I woke up the next morning, Pixie Cousin beamed at me as I opened my eyes.

I smiled back, remembering it was Thanksgiving. Time to count my blessings...

"Let's count the lights!"

...or, you know, light fixtures work too.