spending time with the kids

Having just the three little ones during the day is quite interesting. Jonathan revels in the attention. He is Mr. Helperguy 99% of the time, but the 1% of the time that he joins forces with Charlotte Claire in jumping on the couch and being wild......is awful. He keeps track of what the two little ones are doing, and keeps me posted. This seems to come natural to him. He likes being the biggest kid. For me, that is one plus side of sending the kids off to school - the oldest kid at home gets his/her year or two to thrive. I have watched this happen year after year, with child after child. Some years, when the little ones were expecially close together, the older child had several younger ones home. When Samuel started kindergarten, he had 5 younger sisters. Margaret, Kathryn, Evelyn, Suzanne, and Sonja were all born in 5 years.



Anyway, Jon is having a great time. Today, I made them some pancakes. I made Jon a special teddybear pancake with chocolate chip eyes.....Charlotte Claire doesn't have much patience for sitting at the table eating.....so I try to sit with her and get her to eat as much as I can at each meal....she always wants down while Jon's still eating....I just keep the wet washcloth at the table to wash her when she's done.....and let her get down.....Camille doesn't like to be confined for long, either. It's tempting to let them just have something, but I try to stick to my guns about food at the table only. Keeps the stickiness at the table. And crumbs. Although sometimes I let them have popcorn, or pretzels in the living room.

I may have to cut this short, the kids are watching a VegeTales dvd, but Camille isn't interested....and now it is over....