Littles, Bigs, and In-betweens

There are several different stages of motherhood. For me they correlate to the ages/abilities of my children. Brenna(1), Owen(3), and Morgan(6) (Morgan is borderline in-between) are my littles. This basically means they are completely dependent. Morgan is mostly able to pick up after herself and has beginning chores, but still needs my supervision and constant reminders.

Then there is Duncan (almost 9), my in-between. Duncan can mostly keep track of himself, but isn't really ready to help with much else. He does help keep Brenna occupied, but only when an adult or bigger kid is close by.

Devon (16), Connor (14), and Cameron(12) qualify as bigs. They are old enough to be a real help around the house. They can be left alone or in charge of the little kids. Devon can even run errands and save me a lot of time.

Today, Cameron had reading tutoring in town. Devon often drives him in ( and goes and plays with friends), but she wasn't feeling well. So, I loaded up Cameron, Connor (who has been helping at Grandpa's office), Morgan, Owen, and Brenna and headed in to town. I left Duncan, who didn't want to come along at home. He's not really old enough to stay home alone, but he can be trusted to behave at home with Devon even if she's resting in bed.  I dropped Cameron and Connor off at Grandpa's office (in the same business park as Cam's tutor). Then I went to run a few errands with only my littles. I don't actually do this very often anymore. I usually have a big kid (or 2 or 3) along to help. The kids behaved very well in the store, even when the registers all froze up and we had to wait at checkouts for several minutes until they were fixed. By this point I, however, needed to use the restroom. I decided Grandpa's office was going to work better for taking all the little ones than the restroom at the store, so away we went. When we got to the office, I left Morgan in the break room with instructions not to touch anything, and took Owen and Brenna into the bathroom with me. I was just finishing up, when Owen flipped the light switch off. It was so dark, he couldn't find the switch to turn it back on. I finished snapping my pants, walked over to the door and switched the lights back on. I started to wash my hands when I noticed Brenna. With her hands in the toilet! I think I'm a little out of practice dealing with only littles! I know I somehow managed all this when I ONLY had 3 little ones, but I sure can't seem to remember how. I really appreciate my big kids now.