Big
Kids with Little Kids.
It's hard to chose pictures to start the section of this album on big kids
and little kids: there's a lot of choice. The most striking quality of
this blended family is the degree of complicity and intimacy between the older
children and the younger children, at least before the older children's
principal interest became life outside the home as their teenage years advanced. From the moment that Charles was born, in August
1995, and the other children crystallized a kind of cocoon with him and around him,
the energy (not forgetting the spats) among the children has
been a source of constant inspiration (not forgetting fatigue, respectively!). The best parts of all of the older
children come out with the little ones, and Charlie and Alex have a particularly
good life.
On the left, all the boys fooling around together at San Francisco Zoo in October
1999. They definitely found the baboon appealing,
but we draw no conclusions from this!
Click on the appropriate older child's name for pictures of him or her with
Alexander and/or Charles: Thomas, Alban,
Daphné and Nicholas.
Below right is one from The Animal Kingdom at Disney World in August
2000, where (as you
may notice!) they made a quick stop at the refreshment stand before sitting down
to watch the show. The difficulty that kept them all sitting still was
eating the ice creams in the searing heat before they melted! Check out
Alex holding on to Daphné.
Below right is one from the breakfast room in our home in
Santa Cruz on Alex's fifth birthday in 2003. This was taken
when, by common accord, they decided spontaneously to make faces: fun for them,
but from the photographer's point of view, you can't win them all!
Of course, as the children grow older, the early complicity between the big
kids and little kids has given way to
something else. They were still mutually very fond of each other, but from a
distance that increased over time.
On the left, Daphné accompanied her mother, Charlie and Alex
to the Dickens Fair in San Francisco before Christmas 2006. That's the kind of
big kid and little kid social event which predominated as this album draws to a
close.
By the end of 2007, the big kids' social lives allowed
little opportunity for spending time with their younger siblings, who
consequently spent a lot more of their time with each other. Daphné
would occasionally take the little guys bowling or to the
Boardwalk, Nick would occasionally go as a supporter
to one of Charlie's or Alex's soccer games, Alban
would occasionally play video games with them, and Tom
liked to share his musical tastes with them. But the constant rough-housing
together, the constant bad influence of the older on the younger, that had
evolved with the passage of time. The parents breathed
a sigh of relief!
