Meet The Ones I Rule Over

There we are. The 4 Leahy children. Bridgitt, Nicholas, Liam and yours truly, Shannon. Gosh I love them! 

Between Bridgitt and I there is a 3 year age gap, while between Nicholas and I there is a 5 year age gap. The little guy and I obviously hold the biggest and sweetest age gap of a whopping 18 years and 11 months.

 I couldn't imagine my life without these guys. This photograph was taken in January, just a couple of weeks before I headed back to Varsity. Clauds organised a big family photo shoot and I'll cherish the pictures forever. Due to the fact that we're all at such different stages in our lives (me in Varsity, Bridge a weekly boarder doing Matric, Nic a termly boarder in Grade 9 and little Lem just learning how to walk) it's extremely difficult to have all 4 of us in the same place for longer than 5 minutes. Our holidays are all different and on the weekends Bridge is either at home, with friends or visiting our mom. On the odd weekend that Nic is allowed to come home, he's still busy with sport etc. And me, well I'm in a different province all together. We're a busy family, I'm sure you get the picture.

 Bridgitt is sassy and musical and fiercely independent. A complete flower child. At the age of 16 she bought herself her first 1972 VW Beetle. She walks around barefoot in pairs of my Dad's older sister's dungarees that she sourced from my Gran's cupboards while playing her ukelele with feathers in her hair. She flies with her own wings and has a voice that will guarantee goosebumps. She's athletic and completely wanderlust. She's impulsive in the best way and she's so strong. She's different from me in many ways. We fight. We fight hard - but we love even harder. Apparently I'm too bossy and apparently she just needs to get a bit of a clue. Because of our parents' divorce and our biological mother's choices I learned how to become her parent before I learned how to become her big sister. I'm amazing at making her school lunches, I'm just not quite sure how to talk to her about boyfriends and let her use my make up. It's something we're both working on and while we have our issues, the love between us is stronger than any problems we may face.

Nic is just wonderful. Over the last two years this boy and I have become the best of friends. He's exactly like my Dad in every single way. He's the typical younger brother - he annoys the pants off of me but when we're not together, my heart aches. He has matured so much in the last two years and really is the coolest dude around. He's hilarious and a musical genius just like our Dad. He's full of jokes and pranks and yet at the same time, he's as serious as can be. Because of his love for motor cross, BMXing, skateboarding, surfing and anything fast and dangerous, he's broken almost every bone in his body and has been in hospital so often that even the cleaning staff at Medi Clinic greet Clauds and him by name. He'll prank me and put frogs in my bed and make potassium nitrate bombs and give me absolute grief, but then there will be times where he randomly picks me a flower or comes and hops on my bed for a cuddle. He takes my daily planner and writes notes on different days so I'm surprised when I turn to that page and find letters telling me I'm so special to him and that I make him so proud and that I "must work hard at Rhodes and not let anything distract me, ok?" He loves having his back tickled and he's obsessed with animals. He's got pythons and tarantulas and all sorts of other weird things that he keeps in tanks. I once asked him what he was going to name his python and I got a very matter-of-fact and exasperated answer - "Shannon, please, I don't name my reptiles!" I love this boy, this boy who I'm able to have such fun with, this boy who feels everything so deeply. He's going to be my rock when we're all big and grown up, I can just feel it.

And Liam. Where do I even begin? Little Lem is definitely no stranger to these bloggy parts. He's the littlest human that causes people to love the biggest love. He's a firecracker - surprising us all by making his entrance into the world 2 months early. He's a fighter and he's our family's miracle baby. I love this boy with a love that I cannot describe. I adore how happy he makes Clauds and my Dad - he's the baby they longed for and prayed for for so many years. He makes our family complete. He's sweet and he's strong and I learn things about him every single day. He's made me protective over my family and he's taught me so much about everything. He hates the feeling of beach sand on his feet and he loves his cars and trucks. He's got the sweetest, sweetest facial expressions and the coolest dance moves. I miss him and I hate the fact that I only get to see him every three months but we cherish the time we do have together. It takes him a day or two to warm up to me when I return home, but we pick up right where we left off. I could kiss his face all day if he'd let me and I simply cannot wait to watch him grow up.

And those are the three people that I have been blessed enough to share my parents with. I get to call them my best friends for the rest of forever and while we're all so different, the one thing we have in common is our love for each other.