My Literary Soul Mate

You may be asking yourself what a literary soul mate is. That's good, you should ask yourself questions. I believe it may be a term I made up giving me the right to define it so here goes: A literary soul mate is a character from literature whom you connect with on a deep level. You see yourself in them. When the story ends you know what happens to the character later because it's the same thing that would happen to you. Some notable examples might be Peter from the Chronicles of Narnia, initially selfish and surly but constatly growing, through the grace of Christ (aka Aslan), into a person who is honored and respected. Or maybe you're Laura from the Little House books, perpetually seeing the glass as half full, your optimism and "great" ideas always getting you into trouble, but learning and growing through your mistakes. Or maybe you connect with Maniac McGee. You're self driven, the world can't get you down because you have your outlet that keeps you going. No matter how rough life gets you just keep on running. These are just a few examples of noteworthy soul mates. Now let me introduce you to mine:

Her name, no one knows, she just goes by "the old lady who lived in a shoe." We have a special bond, oldy and I. She lives in a shoe, I live in a house the size of a shoe box (not complaining! I can vacumm almost my whole house on one outlet). A shoe is stinky, my house, well despite my somewhat adequate efforts often smells, sometimes like dirty diapers, sometimes like food, sometimes like fish that accidentaly got lost in the basement for months and no one could find it or figure out what the smell was. . . but I digress. "She had so many children" when I first bonded with oldy I was watching Aidan (2) Fiona (7months) and had Christin (4) and Lindsey (15months) and was pregnant with Jack. "She didn't know what to do" it's not that she had nothing to do, it's the opposite, she had so much to do she could only spin around in circles wondering where she should start. I GET THAT! "She feed them all broth without any bread" I don't think she was poor, I think she just suddenly realized it was noon and the only thing she had in the house was a can of broth. I've been there! The author doesn't say but I believe she may have found a box of crushed goldfish in the back of the cabinet and poured it in the broth declaring the meal "Fish in a pond!" Here comes the best part, "she spanked them all soundly and sent them to bed" she was brilliant, she cut out the middle man and the time saying "if you get out of bed one more time. ..(insert threat)" and then the inevitable punishment leading to tears leading to eventual exhaustion and sleep. No she just spanked them on their way to bed. Her kids probably were always asleep within minutes. She's my hero. Were the story to continue it would go something like this:
She rushed through the house picking up things
clothes, and shoes, and toys, and toy rings

She longing looked at the books on her shelf
wondering when she would get some time to herself

She feel into bed
as this raced in her head:

Tomorrow she'd follow her schedule and be
the most awesome Mom and wife you ever did see!!!