As I write this post I am sitting outside, in the shade of the trees behind our house, as the sun is crawling up into the late morning sky.
I am also being entertained by the four individuals in our pool. Their ages are five, eight, almost thirteen 🙂 and fifteen.
Our youngest daughter and son are playing with abandon, with their younger friends. There is no biology shared between them, 
but their relationship is akin to cousins. The younger pair trailing behind the older, keeping up because they so want to be together, because they so want to do what their older friends do.
They have a relationship that means every greeting and farewell includes a hug. They each get an instant smile on their faces when they see each other. There is total and complete confidence in the love and affection that they have for each other. Together they are like one unit, with no divisions.
The littler ones presence also seems to bring the older ones together in a manner normally unseen in these two VERY normal siblings (aka. fighting, disagreeing, arguing). For all the hours they were together there was none of that ‘normal’ behavior, and I relaxed in my temporary utopia.
The littler girl loves to be paired with the older one, and the littler boy (aka Little Ben) loves to be with the older (Big Ben). That said, they all play together, and when one is missing, their twosome or threesome continue on.
What refreshment they bring to our home and to our day. They provide instant smiles and laughter.
When we see them, I am immediately reminded that the stage of childhood that they are now at (elementary school aged) is completed in our home, and I am immediately satisfied with the return of the joy that their presence brings.
They remind me that washing faces and hands is a must after eating (especially enormous waffles with whipped cream and blueberries). They remind me that half an hour is enough time for any one activity, and don’t try stretching it our too long. They remind me that fights erupt quickly, and are settled and forgotten about just as quickly. They remind me that please and thank you are the most used words in a day. And that when they are with someone they love, their little eyes and hearts and minds are fully attentive to the object of that affection.
This is a privilege, and an honor. To spend time looking at the world through the eyes of children. How much more beautiful, more large, more wonderfilled it is.
itsawonderfilledlife 