Companionship

Everyone needs a friend, a buddy, a comrade. Someone who shares similar likes and dislikes. Someone who will support us when we try to do the right thing and someone who shrugs and says, "Oh, well. You'll do better next time." when we choose the sometimes inevitable wrong things. There are all kinds of different companions. For example, my companionship is obviously quite unique compared to the companionship my daughters hold for each other . Yet, in the dynamics of our family we are sort of defined by how we're paired. I am happy because of the person I've been partnered with for eternity. My sweet girls seem content to run, jump, and wreak havoc throughout our home and neighborhood fueling each other's curiosities and desires to continually investigate why the world operates as it does. And our seemingly lone man at the bottom of the DeMill totem pole has shown no interest in pairing off, but rather making our twosomes in the family threesomes during various moments has been satisfactory to him. We're delighted at this time to report a new transfer and companionship for October 2008. Dashle will no longer reign as a third wheeler, (although we've never really viewed him this way). Our little stud is getting a wee baby brother. His enthusiasm for this news isn't fully evident yet, but we are certain as the first newborn cries sound through our home Dashle's curiosity will best him and these new moments and experiences will be his deciding points. (Be the baby's friend or be the baby's enemy...that is the question!)

We are a family of friends. This is a motto we hold strongly to. Our girls have this idea engraved upon their hearts and minds. When they nip and pick and bug each other the first question posed is almost always, "Who is your best friend?" After years of academy training they know to answer, "Addie is my best friend or Emery is my best friend." (Although we have yet to eliminate their exasperated and annoyed facial expressions as they say it.) And so it will be for our two little boys. The training will begin immediately and it will be fused into their main circuitry that THEY ARE BEST FRIENDS! Sometimes parenting requires the use of coercion, persuasion, convincing, but in our family it is all about brainwashing. "You will love your brother. You will ask him to play with you. You will be respectful to him. You will be considerate of his feelings and share your fruit snack. You will view him as your very best and when he is in pain you will be in pain and you will do all in your power to relieve him of said symptoms.