Will this little lady ever know how much I love her? This is Isabel, my beautiful, smart, caring, compassionate 7 year old. She is the oldest of my three beautiful daughters. She is funny, fierce and sometimes sassy. She is a thinker, she is an observer. She is the one who gets to make me a cup of coffee. She is the one that dad asks for help when he needs to measure something. She is the one who walks her sisters to the bathroom when they are too scared to go by themselves. She is the one who has learned to do homework while her younger sisters sing and scream and cause chaos. She is the one who has had to wait for my attention because I was busy changing or feeding or cleaning up someone or something. She is also my little helper and the one who sometimes gets blamed for the things her little sisters do. The one who has had to deal with her stuff getting ruined by a three year old. The one who has lost story time because her toddler sibling wasn’t cooperating. The one who doesn’t remember that before her sisters came we would sit and lay with her for hours. We played and read books. Went for walks and long car rides. We sat and played with playdough and painted and sang songs, collected leaves and sat outside on a blanket just looking at the sky. I’d hold her in my arms for hours. If she didn’t want to walk, I’d carry her. I Carried her around while she would rest her leg over my 9 month pregnant belly when I was pregnant with my second child. Does she remember that I carried her even if my back was killing me just so she felt safe? Does she remember us making a big fuss over every little thing she learned? I notice now that when we make a big deal about her little sisters learning to read or skip or snap their fingers that she doesn’t realize we also made a big deal about her little and big accomplishments. Does she remember that she too got away with a lot of the same stuff her younger sisters get away with. As the older child she will remember less about her earlier years and  more about her life with two sisters. Her sisters are her best friends. I know there are times she would love to have me all to herself, but my God she misses her sisters when they are not around. Having three children so close in age makes it more challenging to have special time with each one but I do make sure everyday to kiss and hug them, read and play with them and make sure they know how much I love them! Each and everyone of them!