Baby Sister

It isn't often that I get to spend an entire day with just one of my kiddos. 

When all of the kids are about there is an energy that pulses and pitches and moves from room to room as they run and play and chase through the house.

When there is just one child at home, there is a quiet.  Not a silence, rather a quieting that comes when a child is simply self, not part of a sibling set.

It tends to take me a bit to acclimate to that quiet.  My mind and body is usually tuned to a level of accepting noise and commotion and movement.  Even when all in the house are sleeping, I remain alert to the call of "Mommy" or the cry of a restless child.

So my day spent with Lovey was quiet.  And calm.  And quite ordinary, though our sharing it together seems extraordinary to me now.

We looked at ants.

We fed the dog.

We arranged flowers.

We folded laundry (okay, I folded the laundry, she unfolded the laundry.)

We spent time in the windy outdoors.

We ran a couple errands.

We laughed.

And through it all we chatted together in ways we haven't before.  I got to direct all of my questions and ideas to her alone.  She didn't have to share the conversation with her big brothers.  She contributed a lot of "uh-huh"ing and head nodding, and confidently said words, even if she was the only one who knew exactly what those words were.

She seemed older somehow.  Maybe because there was no bigger kids around to be, well, bigger than her.

And I loved every wide-eyed "uh-huh," every ant discovered, every piece of unfolded laundry.

And I love her.  Being her bigger, quieting self.