Elsie's Notes from New England - THEMission edition

It's taken about thirty years for me to get to tell the end of this story.  Hopefully you've read the beginning already. This is Scarlett.  She is two.  She brought her parents to visit us for Thanksgiving this year. Helping Grandpa decorate the tree. When the turkey was all tucked away in its Tupperware and the pies were half-eaten, we had some time on our hands, so I pulled out a batch of cookie dough I had made and she and I cut out some Christmas cookies.  We put on our aprons and washed our hands and pulled up a sturdy stool for Scarlett to stand on so that she and I were almost the same height, and we began to roll out the dough.  On the counter stood the large plastic container I use to store flour.  It holds about ten pounds when it's full.  In it I keep a 1-cup measure and a scoop.  As I dusted the cutting board with flour and she and I took turns rolling the dough flat, a thought occurred to me.  It was a memory, actually. I was back in the linoleum-

How do oldest kids survive?  Being the youngest of seven, I had it easy.  My parents were broken in; broken down, whatever.  They had learned long before I arrived which battles were worth fighting and when to let stuff slide.  Mellow is a good word for them by the time I came along.  They were tough, but there was a lot of wisdom floating around me, besides the fact that they were just too exhausted after raising the other six to fret about every little thing I did, which worked well for me.  On the other hand, I was not a relaxed parent . . . not at the beginning, anyway.  I was only twenty-two when our first was born, so maturity wasn’t my thing yet. I understood the theory of child rearing, but I hadn’t really internalized that what kids need most is loving and hugging and listening and talking and patience and repetition and stability. Kids don’t really care if the bathroom smells Saturday morning fresh all week long.  They don’t care how long the dishes sit in the sink.