Today was a beautiful day. The sky was clear, the weather was wonderful, and the plants swayed gently in the breeze. All I wanted to do was go outside and enjoy myself. But that was unrealistic when you are the eldest of eight children. My siblings ranged in age from seven years to six months old and I was in charge of making them behave while my mother was gone. Today my mother went to go visit some neighbors, leaving me in charge of getting my brothers and sisters ready for the pictures that were going to be taken later in the day. This was no easy task because everybody wanted to spend the day outside playing in the dirt. My plan was to get the younger kids ready first because I could easily force them to play in the clean house until it was time to take the picture. Then I would attempt to clean up my remaining siblings and entertain them until the time came. I figured that if I could just keep them distracted and clean until mother got home, I did my job. This plan however, did not succeed. Dressing and maintaining Benji and George, my two youngest brothers, was easy. But when it came to the other five, I hit a roadblock. I was able to get them all dressed and looking nice, but I could not distract them. Susie and Mary snuck away to go play with their dolls in the flower field and David and James began building houses in the dirt. I freaked out when I realized how filthy they were getting and ran to fetch them.
“Susie! Mary! David! James!” I yelled. “What do you guys think you’re doing! Mom said to stay clean for the pictures!”
“But we wanted to play outside” Susie cried back
“I know! But we have to obey our Mother” I said back.
After a few more protests, I finally got all four back into the house.There I noticed that Susie’s bow was coming untied and somehow, Mary had lost her pants! I also noticed that young Toby had spilt some cold coffee all down his shirt while I was outside.
My siblings were a mess. I frantically began looking for Mary’s pants while patting Toby’s shirt with a towel. Yet before I could fix the damage, mother arrived with the photographer. Mother was not happy with what she saw when she walked through the door, but she couldn’t fix us because the photographer was paid by the hour. So she scooted us all out of the house and arranged us the best she could and snap, our picture was taken. Here it is, the best picture my family has ever had:
Haylin's Hayfield 