Children grow so fast!

I think of my children in "batches," which are THE BIG FOUR and THE LITTLE THREE. However, the biggest of the littlest is now 10, and the littlest of all is 7. They are no longer babies!

Every now and then I have flashes of myself at their age....what I liked to do, or wear, or what I was just like. I see bits of myself in all of them, bits of their fathers....

Fortunately we are all on good terms, so any of the childrens' habits inherited from their Dads don't bring me out in nervous twitches, but tend to make me smile. Maybe the Barbra Streisand song is right, it is the laughter we remember...sooner or later. When we reach that stage, healing has happened, and we are free...almost!

I was touched to receive an email based on the Friends for a reason, season or lifetime adage, which ended with a thankyou for my friendship. It felt that this was sent to me sincerely, because it came from someone who does not normally send these round robins. Declaring friendship is, like declaring love, something we can find hard to do. We may miss many opportunities to do so because we are afraid of how the declaration might be received.

Dolphins, I hear, live in open communities, where they all take care of each other. Humans are very much into the exclusive. Lovely as that is, it can blind us to the fact that love is endless, infinite and not a reason to fight. I try to explain to the children that I love them ALL, I will always love them ALL because....well, just because.