They lead the way.....

Today Alice was bored. She'd had enough of watching me do housework, letting me hang washing, unpack the dishwasher and I dunno, just other stuff. So she came to me with her gumboots. She said 'shox....shoxx mummee' and pointed to her toes. So I got the socks, and put on the gumboots. Then she took my finger, walked me to the front door and tapped on it.

So we went for a walk. All her pace, except for a trip across the road and back. So we got about 200metres from the house, every now and again she'd stop and lean against my leg as if to say "mummeee, we have walked soooo far....mine legs are tired". And then she laid down. On someone elses driveway. A little bit of wee nearly came out, I laughed to hard. So then we walked home. Well, I walked home, carrying her on my hip for most part.

And after school I just sat and let Alice go through Ethan's lunch box and snack while he played. He then came and actually asked me if we could go home. I didn't have to round him up, stop him going off to harrass the school chickens, pick up his shoes, nothing. He'd had enough, he wanted to come home. And we played games and laughed in the car on the way home, just to keep the poor lil exhausted boy from falling to sleep.

When we got home, I'd forgotten to unlock the telly (which he doesn't know about, by the way, so sshhh! He thinks the tv is broken - broken tv = no nagging, locked off tv= whinge at mum til she unlocks it) so he just grabbed his sister, gave her a shovel and then they went out the back for a dig. It was actually harder to stop them and make them come in for dinner at 5 o'clock than it normally is, their synchonicity was so lovely to watch. But the weariness crept in for both of them, the hunger reminded them of the time. So he came in, and got a chair each for them to stand on because tonight was fried rice night, which Ethan cooks for us (all prepared, pre warmed veg etc). Then we sat and all ate together. Well, I ate, they inhaled. Fantastic.

So today I am thankful for children leading the way, being loving on the inside and outside, and fried rice.