Kiddles

Boy, girl, boy, girl, boy, tom girl, boy, tomboy, girl, boy...

When I was younger I knew I always wanted to have children, twelve to be exact. Because, I got my education from reading the classic 'Cheaper By the Dozen' and watching movies like 'Yours, Mine, and Ours' with Lucille Ball, as well as the other classic 'My Father The Preacher'. Everyone seemed to have a large clan, and so of course, I wanted to also have one as such. I came from a family of seven so that was pretty close to twelve. And besides, in watching and reading all of those educational films and books, I understood that by having at least twelve children you, the parents, got a lot of help from the older kids. And when going out for a Sunday drive, you had to buy one of those cars that had the top down because otherwise not every body would fit in the car, and food just grew on trees since nobody ever went food shopping, so feeding my family of fourteen would be easy as pie. Then since there would be a large span in age between the youngest to the oldest, the oldest would help with supporting the family by getting jobs and using that income for the family. And my future husband would be thrilled to have twelve children since there would be so much help and extra income coming in, so he wouldn't have to work so hard. So, in all he'd think it was a win-win situation. And, of course, so did I!

But sadly that was my reality. But looking at my brood, I think three is a good number for now. We would like to adopt one more but are waiting for our current kiddles to be a bit more available to help us out. Nattie has already shown great signs of being a good helper when she isn't screaming or grabbing something from her brother's possession. Matthew, too, has shown he wants to help but doesn't quite have the same knack as Nattie. So, we're off to a good start when we finally do adopt our last baby. If truth be told, we would stop now if we knew we could keep Matthew forever...But the way things look currently, that is absolutely not going to happen so we're setting our sights on adopting another down the road.

And while enjoying staring at my kiddles for great lengths of time, just to enjoy what's going on in their little brains and taking pride in what they are striving for and accomplishing, makes me realize how these three creatures have come along way and will continue to grow and mature to be the kind of people we hope they were created to be. So, I'm hoping that with maturity and when the time is right for us to obtain a new child to our family, our kiddles will be the wonderful siblings to the newest addition. But we'll see when we cross that bridge...Should be interesting....

But I guess the one thing I have become very grateful for is that Nattie is not only all girl, but she also has a tendency toward being a Tom Girl. She is willing to get dirty, fall down and receive scraped knees and elbows and pick up bugs that the rest of us (Nate, Matthew and Momma) won't touch. So, I'm mighty proud of her and feel very lucky to have such a girl. Because god knows when she hits puberty and she becomes all-girl then I'm going to be totally in learning mode to keep up with her fashion, her makeup, her boy craziness, her need for attention, etc.
I am so opposite of her in this area that I have no clue really how to go about it all. But like I said, I'll be in learning mode and hopefully will have done some of my homework when she has reached the age of girlhood fully. I laugh when I think about those days ahead of me...But I realize I can only be open and willing to work with what she's been given and even take a few pointers from her perhaps...

Nate and Matthew will be boys for sure and I will have a lot to contend with and probably lots of broken body parts along the way. But I am all about bravado and no gain without pain.

But to write all of this and then to finally live it all out will be very interesting to say the least. I do look forward to those days ahead, but am definitely living and loving the moments we are in currently. I already can't believe how much time has passed so far...

All the joys of kiddles. I love it!