“I just want her to have educational opportunities. I’m not saying she needs to be reading Shakespeare at three, but I would like to have someone there to work with her if it seems to be suitable.”

“I understand that, but she’s so small. She doesn’t need to have classroom instruction just yet. She needs to be a child,” I replied.

“She’s still a child whether someone is teaching her or not, Dana. But I do agree with you.”

That was all we ever really said about it, but she let up a little on her criteria for preschools and I tried to look at it from her perspective. We wanted to wait to put Kallie into one for another couple of years or so, until she was about four, but it was nice to know that we were on the same page.

We had a lot of fun with her, though. She would try and help us do things around the house and in the garden, and we bought her all sorts of toys like plastic vacuum cleaners, mops, brooms, and shovels. Alice picked things up as much as she possibly could and I’d often come home to find Kallie following her around, miming whatever she was doing. I thought it was adorable.

Charlie was cute, too. From the time he was a baby he loved Shane, and every time she came over he would pout and cry until she picked him up. Then he would grin and burrow his head in her shoulder and hide from everyone. She’d carry him around everywhere, and we’d go to their house sometimes to let Charlie see her if he seemed to be in a bad mood or if he was cranky. He always cheered right up. He loved Jenny too and would follow her around as soon as he could crawl, but it was obvious that Shane was his favorite. Whenever we all hung out, Charlie would go listen to Helena talk for a little while. He apparently loved her accent, but as soon as he was done listening he would find a way over to Shane and cuddle her.

He was an affectionate kid and much more physically affectionate than his sister, and he cuddled Alice and I a lot too. But he always seemed to want to stay with Shane longer. As she and Jenny started to fix up the house up for the foster child they’d been approved for, we started to take Charlie over there to spend the night sometimes. He seemed to like it and they did too.