Partners in Crime

  Our first 6 kids had such a beautiful pattern:  2 girls, 2 boys, 2 girls, with roughly 18 months between each consecutive child.

 After our 6th child was born, we had (for us) a long gap of 3 years before another girl was born, our sweet Sarah. I really expected her to be our little caboose, all alone at the end of the family. But 18 months after Sarah was born, our little Daniel came along.

  So now we have 2 little ones, ages 2 and 3, who are of different genders.  Now of course our older girls play with our boys, but in general Naomi and Lydia spend lots of time together (and share a room), our older boys hang out together (and share a room), and so do Miriam and Angela (who share a room with Sarah)

 I was not sure what to expect from Sarah and Daniel in terms of being "buddies".

Well, they are buddies.  Just in the last week, they've started actually playing together more.  We have a rather messy sun room and we dragged an outdoor slide in there.  They played on that for hours this week.  They also spent some time clambering around an old diaper changing table (which I moved onto its side for safety sake.)  The final glorious moment was when Sarah started chopping off Daniel's hair.  After I screamed in anguish, she stopped. Then I found some tufts of her own hair falling off her own head.  ARRGHGGHHH!  Not too much damage done, but wow -- don't DO that, kid!  Oddly enough, I don't remember any other kids chopping off their hair, but maybe I've just blocked it out.

Our little Rose is 2 years younger than Daniel. At the moment, she is too little play though everyone loves her.  It'll be interesting to see how the dynamics change when she is old enough to play.