She met the Cookie Monster, and found it was she

I ate the kids' cookies.

My neighbor, Katherine, who lives across the street and bakes all the time, yummy things like cakes layered with raspberries and cakes dripping with chocolate, put two freshly baked chocolate chip cookies in two baggies last Tuesday, then handed them to me because it was nearly 5 p.m. and too close to dinner time for cookies. That's what the children's mothers repeated three times before they left their daughters with me: ``Don't feed them anything, Mimi. Not even if they beg. It will spoil their dinner.''

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A Childhood Wish Come True

A Childhood Wish Come True

This is what I prayed for, for as long as I can remember, since first grade, all the way through third and fifth and eighth, and even when I was in high school: a brother or a sister. I didn’t care.

Please, God, please, I begged every Sunday in church and every time I made a novena. Please, God, please, I wished on every birthday candle, on every first star and on every dandelion gone to seed.I had faith. I had patience. Plus, I knew all the tricks: The wishbone. The fortune cookie…

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