Highlighting the "levels"

hanne1 098
Originally uploaded by sonjanz.

This is one of those photos that capture the essence of our family (with the exception that my dh isn't in it)It was taken at my Dad's 70th birthday party and is one of a series reflecting how my siblings and I used to line up at the beginning of the school year for the latest photos. The school (Arthur's Pass) has since been closed. David, my eldest - was the eldest of the eleven cousins and Jonathan was the youngest. Without Jonathan it would have been a photo of adults. It is one of several photos I have which seem to capture the sense of "spanning the gap" between parenting different stages. You note the sulky 16 year old, the exuberant 7 year old and the tolerant young adults!

Coming up to eight years ago I found out I was pregnant with my fifth child. I had a life! All my kids were at school, I had a job I enjoyed, I was doing post-grad study.

Some wonderful things happened in the next few months. I lost count of the women I met who were either the older sister of "an unlooked for treasure" or had one of their own. Without exception they talked about the special joy that child had brought to their family.

With Jonathan now turned seven, my life increasingly becomes my own again but the special joys and challenges of sharing our life with him dont go away. For quite a while I've been thinking of how I could share the knowledge I've gained along the journey as in our age of re-mixed families and later child birth big gaps between children seem more common.

And there are still things I worry about that I'd like to hear other's experience of.

Sonja