To help my flower grow

This is from an e-mail i sent a friends about the children i babysat for tonight...

So unexpectedly I got a chance to baby-sit for Beth and Von. Mary Stuart is 11 yrs old and has cerbal palsy. Will is 8 and into everything… and we had a blast. First event of the evening was playing hide and go seek. When mary suart was looking for me she said “ where are you baby sitter… where are you, I can’t remember her name.” I laughed. We talked about how Mary Stuart is a princess. And I said every girl is a princess (you have to start them early otherwise they will not know that they should be treated as one). Will disagreed but then after much convincing (I had to do the whole daughter of the king dance) he agreed and said that he was a prince if she was a princess.
Later on we had to get ready for bed. And Mary Stuart has medicine she has to take in her applesauce. So you have to sprinkle the medicine over the sauce… they call the sprinkles seeds. So we made a song to go along with taking the medicine.
“Some seeds in the apple sauce to help my flower grow, some seeds in the applesauce to help my flower grow.”
“Who is my flower, Mary Stuart? Mary Stuart is my beautiful flower”

She lit up at being called beautiful. How is it that every woman, no matter what, understands and wants to be beautiful? She understands so little but she knows what beauty is. And she glows at the thought of being considered beautiful. And she is, honesty… if it was not for the cerebal palsy she would be a little heart breaker.

We kept singing the song for different reasons. When we were drinking some water
“Some water for my little girl to help my flower grow”
And bed time
“Night night for my little flower to help my flower grow.”
I love children. I love how open they are to love. You can be over the top extravagant and they love it. You can be silly and it makes sense

Will asked me to stay with him while he played his video game. Oh that got me…

Mary Stuart kept rubbing my hand and putting her head in my lap or on my shoulder. And she would just kiss me.
She is a beautiful girl, Will is a wonderful little boy. All boy with all the energy of a little boy… including flashing me because he knew it would get a reaction. “Will that’s not good…” “But you said you were too old…” “Will go take a bath.” And off he goes flashing his butt at me. Sigh. Y’all don’t change do you(boys)… if it gets a reaction you will keep doing it. Sigh.

But I know I will enjoy baby-sitting for them. seeing Von and Beth, being with the kids provides something I have been missing here in Macon, children and families. I loved kissing Mary Suart and telling her that I love her. And she is so easy to love, so accepting of love. I like crazy Will’s spirit, that he is ready for an adventure and at 8 has a pretty good sense of humor. He is patient. But I guess he has to be with his sister. Wonderful family, wonderful time, I needed a taste of family to get me through this next week. Let me be honest, I needed a breath of children… I miss kids I miss teaching them. Reading Mary Stuart her bedtime story might have been one of the highlights of the evening. Yeah I miss kids… the little boogers that they are.