BY KRISTA RAMSEY
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Thanksgiving is past, but this is the season when gratitude lingers. If you, like me, have spent the last few days in the company of children, you probably have many reasons to be thankful for the little folks in your life. Here are mine:

I am grateful for the children who have the integrity not to blame spilled liquids, broken pottery or bad smells on younger siblings or family pets.

I appreciate the kids who actually say Trick-or-Treat after ringing your doorbell. And the somewhat smaller number who remember ''Thank you'' before smashing your rhododendron as they cross to the next lawn.

I am thankful for children who actually do wash their hands and not just swear to it.

I am grateful for kids in wheelchairs and wearing hearing aids, not because they want to be treated normally, but because they teach us what normal really is.

I am also grateful for the brave children who see Dad hit Mom, and tell.

Each breath is a lesson

I very much like the kids who see an ad for fur coats and tell you they have room for a mink cage in their bedroom.

Thank you to one particular child for introducing me to bubblegum-scented hand soap, blue sparkle toothpaste and Band-Aids with Wilma and Dino.

I am grateful for the tiny preemies in intensive care units who fight for each breath on a respirator. They remind us what a gift it is to be alive.

I am somewhat thankful for the children who keep us humble by announcing our weight, age or income in grocery check-out lines and restaurants.

Thanks for babies who let us dress them in clothing with animal ears and tails, thereby raising the level of cuteness in the world.

And for children who, scraping off the burnt parts, say, ''You make the best cookies in the world.'' Every time.

I am grateful for the children who hunt through laundry baskets for clean clothes, open refrigerator doors to find nothing there, wonder if Mom came home last night, and still make it to school that day.

Thanks for kids who think we'd look nice in chartreuse earrings with dangly chains, but refrain from buying them for us for Christmas.

I admire those children who have been beaten or neglected and still forgive us when we give them detentions for not completing their homework, or jail time for running away.

I very much like the kids who get brooms and dust pans on their own and throw the whole thing away before we even know what was broken. I appreciate the kids who, every morning, teach us new ways to make a bed.

I am grateful for kids wise enough to know that being poor is an economic condition, not a character flaw.

Thanks for children who blow kisses and give high-fives on demand. And for those with the grace to sneeze into their hand and not look at it.

Of Giga Pets, Macarena

I am also thankful that, no matter how much the world changes, babies still smell like babies.

And I like those kids who, when told the facts of life, laugh.

I am grateful for those babies who come into the world in groups of seven. And especially for my own two, who did not.

For children who like dust under beds and think stacks of laundry make cool slides, I am sincerely grateful.

Thanks also for those who say, ''You look great today, Mommy,'' then have the decency to wait more than 30 seconds before asking for the Giga Pet.

I am indebted to those children who know all the words to The Song That Never Ends and all the moves to the Macarena.

And especially to those who keep both to themselves.

In the next few weeks, as our tempers and budgets are stretched to the limit, let us remember the gift we have already been given. Our children - who are the warmth of the sun wrapped up with the sparkle of a star.

Krista Ramsey's column appears on Saturdays. Write her at 312 Elm Street, Cincinnati 45202.

RAMSEY ARCHIVE