real life with small children....

This is Emily Anne, and me. Em is my oldest "child", 31 years old now. We are 19 years apart. Camille is 8 now, so let's just say she was small until she was five. That means, from the time Emily was born until Cam was five, I had "small children" for 26 years. When Cam went to kindergarten, I had college kids commuting, and so on, so the house was rarely actually empty during the day, but it was so different! No diapers, bottles, sugar bowls emptied onto kitchen chairs.

Anyway, Emily deserves a medal for being the oldest of 16 kids. She was there as my right hand girl. Many a time, she lined those kids up and showered them, one after another, for me. She could cook a pot of something for dinner, and she could take them in the pool. Now, I tried not to lean on any one of them too much, I had to let them be kids too, and Em was a smart girl. She would take a book and go climb a tree. But she was always a good big sister. She liked the Having Fun part better than the Helping Around The House part.

She still takes the kids out on adventures. She'll come over and take four or five sisters out shopping. Or water-fall-ing. She's take several-everal of them on sibling camping trips.

Anyway....I could win gold in Off On A Tangent.

These days, I homeschool four kids. It can be busy. I still have to buy the groceries for the ten of us still at home, and of course clean, and cook. Now I also look after a small child, little A., three days a week. And sometimes I have my special little Davian over, he who is four today...he is here now...we celebrated his birthday with a little trip to the library, then to Target...he does not love shopping, but he rode in the back of the cart, with A. in the front, and asked me, "Why did they make Target so big?" ha. I bought him a little snow shovel, and a slinky, and they all got slushies at the end:)


Anyway...tonight I am going to watch my granddaughter Lydia for a while. My arms aren't empty after all, is my point. There are still small children to cuddle...

BTW, having a couple of Labrador Retrievers keeps me a tiny bit busy too...this is what I woke up to the other morning...


Anyway...time to go to the birthday party!!!!