Our youngest likes to tag along and usually wants to hold our hands as we walk. It’s nice.

All of our kids help in one way or another. The youngest is a lousy dish washer. Lousy. But she’s an excellent kitten tamer. The boys are ready to rip the guts out of chickens on butcher day because that job pays the best. The girls prefer not to do that specific job. One spent the first 3 years of chicken processing in the house preparing lunch with grandma. And that’s helpful.

But the key is to find the opportunity for each of them and to appreciate what they each do.

I appreciate anybody who is willing to gut a chicken. I also appreciate anybody who is willing to bake a pie and share it with me.

And I appreciate my little girl taking big steps to keep up with mom and dad so she can hold our hands.