Overcrowding

Last weekend, when I stripped Avery's sheets for wash day, I decided to count how many animals she sleeps with. I knoew there was a reason that the feeling of dread cameover me when it was time to do her sheets. not only does she sleep in a loft bed, making it hard to get the sheets off, she has a gate locked onto her matttress so she doesn't roll off the three foot tall bed and she sleeps, on a regular basis with 57 stuffed animals. Once again, that was fifty seven...no misprint. She is very attached to each one of them. When it is time to pare down, I have to first move a few into the basement for a few months. If she doesn't haveameltdown over losing any of those particular animals, I send them off to a nursing home via a plain brown bag that a woman comes by and gets without evenletting us know that she has come. It is a little like what I think a drug deal or pornography purchase would entail. She is my animal loving, sensitive child.