Cul De Sac

There's a comic strip in the newspaper here that my mother-in-law and I have really taken an interest in reading. The strip is called Cul De Sac, by Richard Thompson. The reason we like it is because the main character, a girl named Alice, closely resembles our own little Miss Oo. Here are a few particularly Oo-like strips:

The following strips from last week's paper depict what it's like to run errands with Oo.

That's my Oo, always sparkling full of ideas. Take today, for example. As I write, she is busy drawing pictures that she plans to sell from a table in our front yard. Despite the fact that she's able to complete each drawing in 60 seconds or less, she's priced them at $10.20 a piece. What's motivating her to make some extra cash today? The house three doors down from us is for sale, and she wants to buy it. She doesn't like living with our rules, so she wants to live on her own. She said that if she buys that house, she'll be close enough that I can see her every day and won't miss her, plus I can still make all her meals and drive her to school.

Wouldn't it be nice to be 7 years old again? To truly believe that once you own a house you are no longer subject to rules? Kids feel angst and stress just like grown-ups, but the simple solutions they come up with are so full of promise and bliss. As a parent I'm often torn between teaching the kids about reality vs. just letting them have their dreams.