Today we took our five year old niece Jess to the zoo. It was a fantastic day - we had icecream, saw the pandas, jumped like kangaroos...then we came back to our house and Jess and us played 'soccer' with our two dogs. We also watched 'Alice in Wonderland'.
It was great - I smiled all day. Especially when she told me that the amount of chocolate topping to put in her milk was about two metres.
When she was picked up by her Mum I felt that familiar heavy heart that I do whenever any of the children in our lives say goodbye and go with their Mum and Dad. We are never going to have that - a child who comes home with us as their Mum and Dad. And it sometimes hurts a lot.
It might be easier to distance ourselves from children and people with children, at least it might seem easier. It wouldn't really be though - we would only be hurting ourselves.
We made a decision not long after we realised that kids weren't going to happen for us, that we would not get to the point where we didn't want to be around children. We both love kids and we love spending time with them. They may not be ours - but they are ours in the sense that we love them and we will always be there for them.
I wouldn't give up the dance Jess did for us in the lounge today for anything...
