Lucky Kids

Dicie has had a friend over all day today because there's no school. She's been having a great time and I've just been thrilled not to hear her complain about being bored! It has been interesting having this friend over though. She is an only child and you can tell! She's not really spoiled or anything, but she just doesn't have the tolerance for our environment the way my kids do. Several times I've seen her plugging her ears and saying "that hurts my ears" when my kids were being particularly raucous or Mia was throwing a tantrum. Once it was when Dicie was dancing around singing "opera" at the top of her lungs, so I'll give her that one - I plug my ears too!

Overall it has just been interesting to examine the irony. My kids usually drive me crazy at lunch time because they sit and goof-around (and often times use their favorite potty words) and just make a lot of noise when I want them to just sit nicely, eat, and get lunch over with. This is really just a ridiculous pet-peeve of mine; I don't really expect children to behave like adults at every meal. So today I gained an appreciation for the fact that my children at least have each other to goof-around with! It is kind of sad to me that Dicie's little friend doesn't get to goof-around with any siblings and drive her mother nuts.

We may be on the other extreme of the family-size spectrum, but I'm glad we are. The interaction the kids have with each other is irreplaceable. The opportunities for friendship, communication, solving problems, and service are plentiful. And though I may have to frequently remind them of this fact as they grow older, my kids are lucky not to be only children.