The World Of Ice-Cream, Love-Notes & Gangly Legs

7 Quick Takes is back being hosted by Jennifer over at Conversion Diary so when your'e finished here pop on over and have a look at some of the other great blogs linked up there this week. If you're wondering where to start, check out Kelly over at her blog  This Ain't The Lyceum, I think it must be one of the funniest blogs on the internet.  My husband laughed so much at the post just linked and if any of you have ever been puked on you just might relate. My own dear husband recognised himself in the husband who bewilderedly strolls in offering help after the said puke has been cleaned up.

Well anyway, this week I have been appreciating the pleasures of middle-childhood.  You know in any family, big or small, a lot of the focus tends to go on the older ones who are hewing the furrow because everything is new and scary for them and for you...or the youngest one...because nothing is new or scary and they are there to be delighted in. When our second youngest was about three or four and looked like he was destined to forever remain the youngest I remember telling him one day

 "You know, Peter, God made you the youngest, so that means your job is to be cuddled"

He was very cuddly, and still is, though sometimes (like that moment) he probably was thinking more along the lines of playing lego.

Now a new little girl has been given the God-appointed task of being the cuddlee, and it's now her who doesn't get too many moments where she can escape the barrage of kisses and cuddles from her older siblings and her no longer scared parents.

So this week I am going to give a few reasons why Middle Childhood is a treasure which passes in a moment that seems like the lifespan of a May-fly.

 Here's To The Perfect Years Of Middle-Childhood

--- 1 ---

You know those years after toddler-hood and before teenage where you live in another plane of existence from adults.  Where parents and their friends are to be pitied because their lives are so boring because they have no toys and watch the News.  Where the Den in the trees is more important than the HHS Mandate, where the speed of your roller blades is more important than the financial crisis and  where the world is safe because Mum and Dad know everything.

I love those years.

They are the foundation.

--- 2 ---

I love when the tinkling melody of the ice-cream van brings them running full of hope and confidence that this time they'll be handed a crisp 'blue paper 20' to treat their friends. Because the last four times they've been shown the empty purse and because they saw you take that 20 out of the ATM just this morning and they know they've been good and that you have promised them a treat

And I really love the happiness that only ice-cream can bring...

--- 3 ---

I love when the promise of 'I'll count' can convince them to do any job.

--- 4 ---

I love that there's still room on my knee for gangly legs and pointy boned bottoms even though at times my lungs feel like they're being crushed and my blood supply feels like it's about to be cut off with 11 year old weight but that the discomfort is diminished by the delight of knowing that they still want to be there

--- 5 ---

I love that they are reading The Little House on The Prairie and Malory Towers which I know to be safe and wholesome and that I don't have to spend the same time researching and studying them as I do with The Hunger Games and whatever other literature the culture throws at the teen market.

--- 6 ---

I love going to bed at night more often than not to find sweet home-made cards and love notes...

I never throw them out  ♥

--- 7 ---

And I love creeping in to tuck them in at night and when I lean over to kiss their sleeping foreheads, I get the soft warm smell that reminds me that even if their ankles keep becoming visible a week after I have purchased new jeans, even if they are happy to spend endless hours out of my sight playing with their friends among the trees and even if before I blink they will be grown...they are still my babies.

And I remind myself

"These are the halcyon days."