Two Reasons I Love Having Nine Kids...

First of all, it sometimes actually makes my life easier when the older kids step in to teach the younger kids. Case in point...story time. The following photo was a candid shot not initiated by me in any way. The 7-year-old girl is reading The Little Red Hen to the toddler and the 8-year-old boy is reading a picture book to Joseph. And it just so happens that it was during Joseph's scheduled naked time. Yes, we actually schedule in naked time after bath time. Why do we do this? Just because the babies love it so very much and it kills some time in the evening as we wait for bedtime's approach. In the month we've been doing this, they've only had two accidents (that we know of)!

The next example of why I love having lots of kids is illustrated in the photo below...


The toddler has this thing that he does when he's tired or needs comfort, or any other time he feels like it. He will find of patch of skin, anywhere, and rub is vigorously while making sucking motions with his mouth. When he first started doing this, but I felt bad and thought that perhaps I had weaned him too soon. I had waited until he was 17 months old and I was six months pregnant with the twins, because I didn't relish the thought of tandem nursing three, but perhaps he wasn't ready. Or perhaps there is another reason altogether that I'm missing. And he's not discriminate about whose skin he rubs. Mine seems to be especially comforting, and he'll hoist his hand up my sleeve as far as he can go (sometimes up my pants, which is a little discomforting) but he also enjoys doing the same to his father. The 7-year-old girl is another favorite, probably because she lets him, but I even saw him doing it, in church, to the 17-year-old boy. Today, as I was putting him down for his nap, Joseph had happened to scooch over close to the toddler's side of the bed in his slumber and when Johnny honed in on that skin, he began to vigorously rub his hand in and out of Joseph's shirt. When I saw this, I ran over and asked him to please stop or he would wake up the baby. I actually couldn't believe that the baby hadn't woken up! I sat at my desk in my room waiting for Johnny to fall asleep, and every few minutes I would look over to see that Johnny had grabbed Joseph's hand and started rubbing on it. I would give him the mean mom look, he would smile, then move his hand away. But again, after a few minutes his hand would be on Joseph's rubbing and rubbing. I would give him the mommy look again, he'd smile, then tuck his hand under his pillow. The last time I looked over, Johnny had finally fallen asleep, but not before he got one last rub of Joseph's hand...


Even though the thought of Joseph waking up had stressed me out, it was so sweet to see the love two brothers can have for each other.

Just had to count a couple of blessings today. Thanks for listening!

Daily Feature - What I ate today (in case you care):

Breakfast: Almond butter and raw honey sandwich on whole wheat bread
-a glass of almond milk

Lunch: Leftover raw vegetable stir fry,
-a small sample bowl of recently dehydrated granola with strawberries, agave, and soy milk,
-a small sample of strawberry sorbet
-a bowl of strawberries with homemade vegan whipped cream. (You may be asking yourself, "Why so much?" The answer is, I was trying out different recipes and I had to taste test all of them!)

Snack: Two bowls of strawberries with vegan whipped cream (yes, I REALLY liked it!)

Dinner: None, as I wasn't hungry after the two bowls of strawberries and cream

Snack: A small piece of raw lemon cheesecake

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