Wanna Onion Sandwich?

My mom had five kids and I have one. Our house was always pandemonium growing up, a chaotic vortex of books, toys, bicycles, pogo sticks and rollerskates that sucked all the kids in the neighborhood into it. Even when we Suitt kids weren't home, there were often extra kids there.

My mom used to joke that since we ate all the best food in the house or "everything not nailed down" as she'd say, that she'd been forced to come up with a special treat for herself that the kids would never touch. Her big treat was an onion sandwich — whole wheat bread, cream cheese, salt, pepper, onions. She certainly achieved her objective — none of us could stand the sight, or smell, of the thing.

My son's befriended two twin boys in the first grade who love to come to our house and have me baby them like "only" children. Since there's only one of him, he is always on the prowl to bring more kids into our house. The twins are part of an amazing family. The family of five kids has two twin boys in 1st grade, two twin boys in 3rd grade and one boy in 5th grade. They even kind of all look alike — a veritable tribe of blonde, skinny, noisy, sweet round-faced grinning Irish kids. They're great kids. I love to drop by their house since it reminds me of my house as a kid.

We had a "playdate" with the twins at our house yesterday afternoon and I took them home to their wild house around five. Their dad was there running the show. Since he is a professor and has a more flexible schedule than their mom, he is often the chief wrangler. He invited me in for a cup of tea and rummaged around in the cupboard for some cookies.

"I had to find some cookies none of them would eat," he said, in a beleaguered tone, putting a box of Lorna Doones on the table. But someone had gotten into them. Darn! The older boy had started liking them. "Wait, wait, I've got another kind none of them like." He was so proud to have prevailed. We ate some very weird Canadian maple leaf cookies and downed two cups of tea while my son ran wild and ecstatic in his new family of six boys.