I miss our babies

Today was our church Fall Festival. We have a lovely couple at our church who own a 2,000-acre ranch in Polk City, and for the last several years, they open up their home and ranch to our entire church family, as well as all our friends for a fantastic Fall Festival. Don and Tammy (the ranch owners) know everybody in the world, and they have all kinds of fun stuff for people to do. They have those big round hay bales that kids get to play on and hide in, they have hay rides and swamp buggy rides, skeet shooting, horse riding, greased poles to climb and other things. Last year we had chicken and greased pig chasing. It is just loads to fun. Today we had beautiful weather and it was just a great day.

I had a meeting to go to this morning, and didn't get there until right at 3:00 this afternoon. I was scheduled to be the adult in charge of the inflatables – a bounce house and one that was all sorts of games. When I got there, I was walking around and I looked over and Trevor, one of my nursery little ones was running right towards me, with his arms held up. He crashed into me, I picked him up, and he wrapped those little arms around my neck and just hugged me. It was so sweet. He said 'Hi Ms Sandi." It was precious! Now, you need to understand, in the nursery, he's somewhat ambivalent towards me . . . We play together, and we read books together, but he's never greeted me like that in the nursery. It literally warmed my heart. As I was leaving the ranch, I thought about that sweet little boy hug some more and I realized something. I miss my nephews and niece being little! My nephews are 24 and 18 and my niece just turned 11. I was a little sad on her birthday when I realized she had outgrown the toy section for birthday presents. I had a rather depressing birthday two days after hers, so I was somewhat overwhelmed anyway, but it hit me again today. I miss being able to buy them cute little presents. Now, they are too big for cute little stuff. They like different things. I miss getting hugs from little ones. . . My niece does still run up and expect me to pick her up and hug her, but she's HEAVY!     I can only hold her for a few seconds. The nephews outgrew me holding them a LONG time ago. I miss that sweet smell of freshly bathed little ones. I know things never stay the same, but it still makes me sad. I want my babies back!