The things I can do......

........ now that I no longer have any children under 5 years old! 

Great title for a book, huh? It's taken me quite a while to fully realise and embrace this state of 'freedom' - until now I have still been thinking like a mama with ongoing littles, though I suppose thats to be expected! After all, I have spent 21 years with under 5's and my brain is programmed to be on the lookout for any potential child dilemmas! Perhaps I need to wipe the hard drive in there and reload a new program...... "Children almost self sufficient" or just "Relax"!!! 

So, I have been giving this some thought and have come up with a small list of changes in my life - not in any order of import just randomly ..........

- Scarves are no longer items of possible strangulation and can be worn without constant rearranging.

- I can go out without a large bag of accompaniments. In fact I can go out on a whim and all remaining children get dressed, find appropriate shoes and an apple or two without much input from me! 

- I can sit in a favourite chair and sip tea and read a book and get REALLY engrossed in the story knowing I will not have to get up in two minutes. 

- Lovely long strands of beaded necklaces can adorn my person without risk of being snapped and the beads rolling off in a dozen different directions. 

- Sunglasses can stay on my head and not be imprinted with sticky finger prints or worse, have a very loose fit from being used by chubby hands on chubby bellies. 

- I no longer need a weeks supply of snacks, in a box at my feet, when we travel further than 15 minutes from home. 

- I can plant seedlings in nice straight rows and know they wont get pulled out as soon as my back is turned - and hear someone say "weed, Mama?" 

And if I thought about it longer I'm sure there'd be a whole lot more! Funny thing is, it's so hard to break the habits of so long -and when all is said and done, I do miss those days with lots of young ones. Hard work, yes; never ending days, yes; satisfying, yes!! 

I would love to have added some pics of some of my long ago babies, but they are all on our old computer, so I had to content myself with leaving you with one of the whole family, taken about 2 years ago! Our one and only professional family photo shoot!