peaceful

I know, looking at this picture the word peaceful isn't exactly what comes to mind, but day-to-day life in our home, even with four kids IS peaceful. My thought about each of my children is they are their own person and I am the person lucky enough to know them, lucky enough to guide them, lucky enough to love them. The most beautiful part is they get to love each other too. My son is the only boy in a family with three big sisters, the big sister in the picture is the younger me, her patience with children, her innate knowledge of knowing how to react and what to say, she is magical, she is better than me I think. She is the defender of everyone smaller, younger, weaker, and everyone bigger, older, stronger. Here, in this photo, he was looking in her mouth and not opening her mouth very gently, yet she was gentle with him, she was laughing, and that made him laugh too. He likes to open my mouth then open his mouth and make noise into mine, with his sister he was just putting his hand in there. Invasion of space? Oh, sure, absolutely, and if she asked him to stop and he did not I would have swooped in, scooped him up, and distracted him, but she was laughing so I took pictures. I try not to spend my days admonishing my children for one thing after the other, and I have been doing it for so long that I hardly stop them from anything because they hardly do anything I don't like. My son is different as he is after all, three and a half, but even with him I will say one time to stop doing whatever I want him to stop doing, then I will just pick him up laughing and distract and redirect. So, it's a peaceful house. I wish I was as patient with my husband as I am with my kids, but I am working on that!