Hello tender friends! I apologize for not posting this last night. My car battery died, so it was a bit of back and forth getting up and running again. For those of you who are new, 1)thank you so much! and 2) I typically post Monday evenings each week and Thursday evenings when possible.
This is yesterday’s post, obviously a bit late.
Hello tender friends! I hope you and your families are well!
Speaking of family, I wanted to share what’s been on my heart the past few months regarding my own family.
In case you don’t know, I have a lovely husband and spectacular son. I’m a blessed woman who gets to snuggle with my two favorite guys every day and night. But it would be disingenuous to pretend that I don’t hope for more kids.
Just look at him. How could I not want a baby Cub 2.0?
Remember when Ace of Base sang, “All that she wants/Is another baby…?” In my naivete I wondered why that poor woman couldn’t just have another baby. I also wondered why she was so keen to have another when she already had one.
The song was actually about spending the night with a guy, not childbearing, but my original misunderstanding of the song has been on my mind lately.
When a friend asked when I was going to have another baby, I smiled and shrugged, like I wasn’t concerned about it. I didn’t want to turn the attention of the group conversation to me and kill the mood.
But here’s the raw truth: I thought life would look different by this age. Turning 37 in December hit me harder than past birthdays even though it’s not really a significant milestone by most standards. Because I had different expectations for myself and our family by this point of my life. I’m a 37 year old mother of one who planned on being a mother of two by this point.
There are multiple reasons I don’t know when the time will come, but I thought it would have happened by now. I was grateful that I didn’t experience a “quarter life crisis” like John Mayer in my 20s, but I spent a few weeks in December wondering if there’s such a thing as “second-third of your life crisis.”
Watching Cub plead to “go see his buddies” every day, I feel guilty on days that I don’t have time for anything other than cooking and cleaning. “Mommy, are we going to church today?”
“Not today, Boo Boo.”
“But I want to go see my buddies!” He sits on the floor, legs spread, and pounds the floor beside him with closed fists. “I want to go play with my buddies!” Copious tears fall.
Cub pushes his friends in his RadioFlyer wagon and gives them dinosaur rides on his back. When it’s time to go, he cries again, “I want to go with them!” He points his index finger at me accusingly. He deserves a sibling and a built-in buddy in our own home.
Yet I refuse to waste my time waiting. When I was reading to Cub recently, the wisdom of Dr. Seuss struck me: “Waiting for a train to go or a bus to come/or a plane to go or the mail to come…or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake/or a pot to boil, or a Better Break…Everyone is just waiting.” My addition could be: Happy with one but waiting for another/Waiting and wondering-will it be a sister or brother?
Instead, I go forward with the mindset that we’ll have another child when the time is right, and believing this helps me to let go of waiting. Because for me, part of the difficulty of waiting is the uncertainty of whether or not my desired outcome will actually occur.
I was impatient waiting for my healing, yet it came. God hasn’t let me down yet. He has a spectacular track record of taking care of me.
So I intentionally focus less on waiting and more on enjoying. I enjoy Cub waking up and saying, “Hee-Haw. I’m a donkey!” I enjoy Cub’s hair blazing like gold when the sun strikes it outside and he says, “Good morning, plants!” to the garden. I enjoy this time when it’s just the two of us, because life has a funny way of making me long for time I once wished away. And what is waiting, if not a way of wishing away your current blessings?
I trust that my season will come when the time is right. And I believe the same for all of you. Whatever it is your heart longs for, join me in trusting that it will arrive when the time is right.
What is one of your current blessings that you want to fully appreciate in this season? Please let me know in the comments!
Be blessed, tender friends!
Thank you for sharing!
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Also, for those who are new, I’ll be posting one or two more things on motherhood/parenthood this week and then some tips for water-only fasting after that. It is one of the most cost-effective modes of healing I’ve discovered to date!
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tea and tenderness 
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