The Girls

In Old Alexandria today: Iris, Lilah, Julie, Claire

The girls and I have had the last couple of evenings to ourselves (along with our dear boy Cole, of course, commonly known as "Baby"), and I like the girls. The mommies have gone out for dinner and shopping and various Mommy Pursuits, leaving us to our own devices. Tonight, after a happy scrub in the bathtub, they scurried to my room, where, after a precedent of one night, they have learned that we have story time. We all pile against the pillow and read two stories together, and I soak in the feel of their trust and affection in their sleep-heavy heads, piled against my shoulders and arms.

Before bedtime, I was working on something in my room and the kids were playing happily together. Claire came racing through, the other two girls and chaos trailing in her wake. After trying to jump on the bed and dancing around the tiny room, she grabbed my towel off its hook on the wall and was about to start dragging it across the floor; I snatched it back and hooked her in my arms, speaking sharply to her about her tendency to act without giving the least thought to what she was doing. I know she didn't intend any mischief; she simply was wild to Do something and didn't give a particle of thought to what it was as long as there was action involved. The rebuke was more because she had interrupted my happy little project than because I truly believed she needed to be reprimanded. The sharpness certainly was uncalled for. After her bath, as I cradled her chin in my hand, scrubbing her teeth, my earlier actions rose up before me and I knew I needed to apologize to her. So, as I brushed, I asked her to forgive me. She readily, even eagerly nodded her head, freely giving forgiveness.

And she is learning lessons too: after I tucked her into bed, she appeared in my doorway. She's not supposed to get out of bed, but I listened to what she had to say before sending her back. "Um, Julie, do you think you could look for my tights [special pink tights she always sleeps with which we couldn't find at bedtime tonight], after you're done with this [waving her hand at the project spread out in front of me], and if you find them, you could bring them down to me?" I said yes and before I could send her there, she disappeared back to bed. She had asked politely, gone to bed without being asked even though the tights were still missing, and she even allowed that my project could take precedence over her needs. A small thing, perhaps, but the little evidences of "considering others as better than herself" made my heart thrill.

Iris asked me, as I was tucking her in, if I would go to my church tomorrow. "My church is too far away," I told her. "I'm going to your church!" She was still puzzled.
"But why?" she asked.
Me: "Because I'm visiting you! So I'm going to your church."
I: "But why aren't you going to your church?"
Me: "It's very far away."
I: "How far?"
Me: "About three thousand miles."
I: "Whoa. I thought maybe it was thirty-hundred miles."
Me: "Nope, three thousand, so pretty far. So, I'm going to church with YOU!"
I: "Are you going to my class with me??"
Me: "No, I think I'm a little too big for that."
I: "It's for fours and fives."
Me: "Yep, I'm too big."
I: "And Wade's class is for sixes and sevens."
Me: "I'm too big for that too."
I: "And then we have eights and nines."
Me: "I'm too big for that, too. Do you have one for twenty-eights?"
I: "Twenty-eight! Is that how old you are?"
Me: "Yep."
I: "Are you still a kid?"
Me: "Is twenty-eight still a kid?"
I: "I think it is."
Me: "Then I guess I am."
I: "Is Mommy older than you? I forget -- I don't know how old she is."
Me: "Yes, Mommy is older."
I: "And Daddy is older than her, so that means he's older than you too. So Daddy is the biggest, and Mommy is the middle one, and you are the littlest."
Me: "Yep! Goodnight, Iris."