I Do It, Momma, I Do It

Yesterday, HH and I met for lunch. With four kids in school, I find I am allowed more freedom for spontaneous lunch dates. I met him at a nearby restaurant, and the hostess asked us, “How many?”

I looked around my feet. With only Babe in tow, HH and I then looked at each other….and said something very strange, “Two and a highchair.”

We chuckled together, and I thought to myself: When we first had Thinker, this is what we said, “Two and a highchair”. But he’s not our first child. He’s our fifth.

I looked around the restaurant as she sat us at a small table, brought a high chair and HH put Babe’s bib on. I smiled to myself, thinking, “Wow, it really does look like he’s our first.”

Time moves. Time moves even without our permission. We sat, enjoyed our lunch and as Babe tasted my soup, and ate HH’s crackers, I had mixed emotion. Wow, we can sit and have an uninterrupted conversation. Wow. That’s a great feeling. And then I felt something else….something foreign. I felt a sense of loss. Where are my children? Why aren’t they here? Am I not needed as much anymore? Don’t I have to cut your meat, or pour your ketchup or wipe your mouth?

That sense of loss is interesting to me. I have lived for many years with that peripheral vision at its peak of performance, sensing what will happen before it happens, proactively preventing that spill, that mess, or trying to teach some lesson on etiquette or virtue. Over the summer, I secretly rejoiced over the thought of letting my peripheral vision have vacation time every now and again. But I never knew a sense of loss would accompany it. I never knew over lunch, HH and I would run out of conversation topics, having been used to the quick, short comments before a little voice would interrupt our chat. As parents, we shortened our talks, and we got good at getting to the point. We were fast at decision making, resolution finalizing and even sweet talking, less some little person needed something urgently.

During a conversation lull at lunch, HH looked over at me, and said something interesting, something that I’d been thinking for a while, he said, “We’re moving into a new chapter, aren’t we?”

I smiled and agreed. “Yep, I think so. It’s strange, but good.” I looked at Babe, then, and his huge, white milky smile told me all I needed to know. Time may move without our permission, but what it can’t do, is tell us how we deal with that fact of life. We can sit and lament our current state of life and watch the minutes tick into hours and wasted days, as we drag our feet along hoping for something else, different, or more comfortable. Or we can be in it, embracing this new way of life, joyfully. God has it all in His plan. My job is to keep moving forward with it.

Today, a lump formed in my throat, as I walked on the school sidewalk with Babe, and he deliberately let go of my hand. As I reached down to grab it again, he pulled it away from me and said, “I do it, Momma. I do it.”

“Yes, my darling Babe, you CAN do it. But when we cross the street, you hold Momma’s hand, okay?"

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