Between Sunday night when the kids wouldn’t go to sleep, and Sunday even later at night when my son was still pleading, I must’ve said yes

My ten-year-old was begging me for permission to make a carnival. His logical persuasion and earnest appeal, was wearing my emphatic NO thin.

He had started talking about his plans last year, when my NO was loud and clear. There was no earthly way I was up to all it entailed: the planning stage, the fighting stage, the implementation stage, the fighting stage, and the cleaning-up-while-fighting-again stage.

He left lists around the house, and words like popcorn-popper and donut maker appearing on my grocery lists at random times. He convinced one younger brother to ask for rolls of tickets for a Chanukah present, and wheedled another one into completing a chart for kriah practice, and then had him request a chocolate fountain as a reward.

Oh, the measures he took to get me to agree. He promised he’d do all the work, he’d clean up, he’d handle the fighting (yes, he said that; talk is cheap, ladies), he’d pay back every penny he would borrow from the drawer to fund this entity (jelly beans and popcorn seeds, it seems, are not so cheap).

I didn’t foresee the weaknesses in my defense plan. My husband was encouraging, why not, it’s a healthy outlet, maybe he’ll learn some financial points for the future. My neighbors shrugged, nonchalantly agreeing to have their boys man some booths. My brain was tired, my baby was all-consuming, and somewhere in a daze between Sunday night when the kids wouldn’t go to sleep, and Sunday even later at night when my son was still pleading, I must’ve said yes.

I would live to regret it.