"And the Kids"

A couple days ago I signed a Facebook birthday card "Josh, Ashlee, and the kids" because the Group Card application did not allow me enough characters to write "Josh, Ashlee, Meyer, Resha Kate, and Malachi." Never before had I denied my children their unique identities by naming them as a collective—"the kids." (At least, I had never before done such a thing in a greeting card.)

Early in our relationship, when Ashlee and I would exchange cards for different occasions, we would include in our salutations the names of individual cats (i.e. "Love, Josh, Naomi, and Reggie"). As our cat population grew and listing the name of every cat became untenable, "Naomi, Reggie, Rivers, Curtis, etc." became "the cats." (Now the cats are lucky to be mentioned at all.) It's weird to see the same thing happen to our children.