i need to swim more

from friday morning until sunday evening i babysat 4 terrific kids. i had never babysat these particular children before, and i was not sure how the little ones would handle my complete emersion into their lives. the older two, bree and brock, know me pretty well from school, but the younger two, elli and gracie, only get to see me on the occassional sunday and although they always throw a smile my way, they seem to be a bit more shy and definite momma girls.

turned out that all four of them were wonderful and sweet. they wore me out. we played a lot of baseball, went swimming, played a bit of nintendo, played in the park, you know, all the fun things of childhood. they are all very smart children, so they said a lot of things that made me think, but the one thing that made me think the most was something that 3-year-old gracie told me. saturday night we went to see "night at the museum" and gracie was sitting on my lap for the first 15 minutes of the movie. but 15 minutes was all she could handle. at that point she turned to me and said, "um, danelle, i don't like that baby in your belly so i'm going to sit by brock."

well...i had to laugh at that. i appreciated her honesty. sadly, as most of you know, there is no baby in my belly. it's just a bunch of hostess ding dongs and fried chicken. needless to say, i need to swim more. thanks for pointing that out gracie. and thanks to my oldest sister and her family, who watch maggie for me so that i can take care of other peoples' children, i really do appreciate your help.