Category: General Family News

Click over to 5 Minutes for Mom for more “Wordless Wednesday” and We Are That Family for more “Works for Me Wednesday.”

“Mommy? I can’t wait until I be ten!”

I hear this remark from my three-year-old on a regular basis.

I don’t know why “ten” is such a magical number in her mind. But every time she says it, I think I’m going to blink and she’ll “be ten,” and her words will echo in my mind like it was yesterday.

The other day I had to go to Target. Daniel watched the older two, and I took Carissa. Usually she’s a great baby for running errands, but not this day. She fussed the entire time.

First, I stopped to nurse her, but she was working on a diaper so she wouldn’t finish nursing. I guess her tummy hurt. I then had to stop again to change her (very messy) diaper. And of course, once that was over, she was ready to finish nursing. The whole shopping trip turned into a ridiculously long nursing-and-diaper-changing experience. In the end I had to run through the store, grabbing the most essential items so I could get back home for dinner.

During the diaper change in the Target restroom, Carissa screamed. I always hate it when my babies scream in public. I had a couple less-than-ideal interactions with complete strangers when Micah was going through his ‘I-have-colic-and-I-scream-inconsolably-several-hours-a-day’ stage.

But mercifully this time two older ladies (one a grandmother, the other a great-grandmother) smiled at me through Carissa’s screams and told me to enjoy these moments because it will go by so fast.

While the screaming diaper moments in a Target restroom are not ones I want to linger in or repeat, I know they represent a stage that passes so quickly. Every evening, I’ve been enjoying extra long cuddles with this, my third child! I never want to forget the feeling of a newborn baby snuggling into your chest, breathing those contented newborn sighs.

Later that night, I held Mara. My big three-year-old Mara.

It wasn’t very long ago that she was my little baby. I told her about it: “Carissa wasn’t born yet. Micah wasn’t even born yet. Daddy would work late at night, and it would be just Mommy & Mara at home. And I would hold my little Mara and tell her how much I loved her.”

“But you’re growing up so fast!” I told her, giving her a hug.

And in her dramatic way, she sighed, “I wwwwish I would! Growing up takes sooo lonnnng!”

I didn’t try to explain it to my three-year-old. I just hugged her, even tighter.

As a child I thought the exact same thing.

But now I know better.

It’s gonna fly. . .

Instead of Not Me Monday, I’ll just confess . . .

Yes, that was me, dashing into Burlington Coat Factory, grabbing a shirt off the rack so I could use the dressing room as a private spot to nurse my baby in the mall.

And yes. It was a blindingly-yellow Rocawear t-shirt with gold sparkles all over it (hey, that was the closest rack to the dressing room).

And yes, I said ‘no’ half an hour later, when the attendant asked if that shirt “worked for me.”

And yes, there was another woman with her stroller standing outside waiting, when I came out of the handicapped dressing room . . . I wondered what she was trying on . . .

———-

Yes, that was me, roasting marshmallows on a fork over my gas burner last night.

I was craving toasted marshmallows–ohhhh, I was craving them! Maybe even more than the marshmallows, I was wishing I were sitting around a campfire in the mountains somewhere in North Carolina. . . those were the days . . .

And yes, that was me, biting the marshmallow. Right. Off. The glowing fork! Might as well have stuck my tongue with a hot poker.

ARGH! Took care of that craving. And all others, quite frankly.

We loved our time at Fairmount Park (as you can see in both Cherry Blossoms & Violets and Hide-and-BOO!). Before bedtime, I always encourage Mara to talk to God and thank Him for special things He allowed us to enjoy throughout our day.

So she prayed:

Dear God, I appreciate that you really love us! Thank you, God!

Dear God, thank you for Tinkerbell, and thank you that we got to go to Fairmount Park.

In your name I pray, Amen.

Wordless Wednesday