In Which We Have a BOY

Read that right.  I did not say I gave birth to a boy.  I said we have one.  Over the years we have talked about how totally and COMPLETELY different this family would be if we had a son.  Well, today we are finding out what it is like to have one very busy boy child among us!  A friend had an emergency appendectomy last week.  I offered to babysit for her, but she didn't call me.  So yesterday I called her.  "It's not easy to rest with a toddler around," she says.  !!  No!  So that is how we came about to have a boy in the house. 

Emily is in on cloud nine.  The big sisters are all occupied elsewhere, so she has assumed the role of babysitter and playmate.  How often Emily has wished for a younger sibling to play with.  The boy found a box of potato gleanings at the bottom of the stairs, and he seems to think potatoes belong in the kitchen. So Emily has climbed the stairs twenty times in five minutes, with a boy and a potato.  For his entertainment, she has fastened and unfastened his car seat belt a dozen times in the past three minutes.  They have gone together to throw clothes into the washer and dryer. The two of them built and destroyed a dozen towers of blocks.  He has been here for all of a half hour.  :)  When we take him home, Emily will want a nap!  I will have to pay her a dollar for handling the extra energy in the house while I iron and tackle the rest of my 100-item-long list of things to do before Monday.

Today Alison and Amy are volunteering at the nursing home.  Elisabeth is helping Daddy canvas a town of about 50 people with flyers for our new church.  In the next 48-52 hours I have to make a trip to WalMart and McDonalds, finish the laundry, make turkey dinner and dessert for Sunday at church, and pack for a short trip and a long drive to and from our home church.  The tub needs a scrub (as well as the rest of the house), I need to run my feeble vacuum cleaner, and wash out the window tracks.  Okay, that last thing can wait.  And we can scratch McDonalds.

Emily and the boy have now eaten lunch, played in the sink, looked out the window by climbing a step stool fifty times, and played hide and seek.  She's a good babysitter.  And who says little boys are more work than little girls are?  (Look -- he's SLEEPING!)