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I like this picture. It represents one of the relationships in my home. After a busy day walking around historic Savannah, our large group of fellow homeschoolers was tangled up in the other visitors, all trying to buy candy and ice cream treats in the little shops. As we gathered ourselves in family groups to leave and head back to the rental, we find that Susanna has been left out. She didn't get an ice cream. Our group is leaving us, and she is near tears. Big brother Daniel, with the super human power of Being Able to Walk Across the Street Without Holding Hands With a Grown-Up, poses the solution. He will go get her an ice cream and then they will catch up to our slow moving group, if we will linger in the back of the group and give him directions by cell phone if we get to far away. As I turned for the twenty-seventh time to look behind me for them to appear, there they were. My baby girl safely in the hands of my baby boy. (For he will always be my baby, even if he is taller than me.) She has her cone in one hand, her hero in the other. He walks tall and confident, managing to look cool in his sunshades with little sister by his side. A snapshot of their relationship. Not all the relationships in my house are as obvious as this one with its quirky little sister and early adulthood brother. But the unseen breeze of all these relationships moving and blowing through my house make the atmosphere of my home. And I think of them this time of year, because I begin to think of Christmas trees. At Christmastime, when all the children were too little to drive to a store, much less shop alone, we parents would take them to a dollar store to shop for each other. While one parent waited outside, the other would take a few in at a time to shop. It was easy-no need to disappoint a thrilled preschool shopper with the words"that is too expensive". It was hard-excited children plus crowed aisles times 7(then 8 or 9) equals major mall meltdown. It was a time for forgetting- "How did we end up with 2 for him and none for her?" It was a time for learning-the second year I came with a "who-has-shopped-for-whom" list. But what the best part of all was the way the relationships were revealed. They, at the youngest ages, knew things about each other, had shared loves and dislikes, delighted in choosing this for him, that for her. No one was surprised when Caleb picked out a special little car for each one of his siblings, but what was amazing, was how each car really fit. He gave me a van with a tow behind camping trailer. I have always wanted a van with a camping trailer. How did he, at age 2, know? Arriving home, sneaking steps, bags behind backs, whisperings and wrappings, one by one, gifts appear. Under the lighted tree dangling with homemade ornaments of the years past, seventy-two sibling-to-sibling presents appear. Seventy-two individual gifts. Seventy-two individual relationships. Last year, to be practical, I decided each child would get 2 sibling gifts, one from the "biggers" one from the "littles". It was nice. I didn't have to do anything for the older ones since my oldest drives now. I took care of the younger ones somehow, it isn't even memorable. The gifts were very nice. No junky dollar store stuff to sometimes be carted off by the garbage collectors in the same load as its wrapping paper. Last year was very nice, but there is something touching about seventy-two individual gifts under the Christmas tree. Seventy-two individual relationships represented under the Christmas tree. |
