Angels in Disguise

I never talk much about babies. I am done with that part of my life. Diapers, bottles, disrupted sleep. I joke now that I am done, like stick a fork in me I am done.

I guess having Shorty so long after the other two were independent was hard a lot of times. Dragging him around to all the big kids things when I just wanted him to be able to be home like they were when they were younger. And I guess when I finally had a little bit of freedom, when he was in school and now in school full time I never wanted to go back to being stuck. Stuck in the house, not being able to do lunch with the girls, not showering til 3:00 in the afternoon. All those things I was not happy about when I got myself "stuck" again six years ago.

SIX years ago. Where did that time go? For awhile now I have been afraid that I wished it away. Too much complaining and not enough being in the moment.

Yesterday I was holding a little fellow that I know during a breakfast with the girls. He is the kind of guy that you just want to take a bite out of, big blue eyes and all. As we chatted all 8 of us a mile a minute an older woman walked by our table. She looked me holding him and mouthed..."just love him". Guess she must've thought he was mine. I smiled and said I know.

As I thought about my day later on, I thought I did love them. I mean of course I love them but I did love it. Loved that baby smell, that little diaper butt, feeding them a bottle and finding them staring at my face and when I looked down they would smile and dribble formula all over the place. The serious LOUD jumping in the exersaucer, baby food jars in the cabinet, the sound of the baby mobile playing a lullaby over the baby monitor. I have been afraid that because I don't miss it I have wished it away. I don't miss it. Not in the sense that I want it back. I just think now that when I hold a baby or walk down the baby aisle in the supermarket that feeling I get is not dread. It's a tug at my heart to remind me of how wonderful it all was and how lucky I was to have happy healthy babies to love.

I love my life now and where we are at as a family. I can have grown up deep conversations with these two teenagers that live with me. And I know they are the same two lumps folded up in a tight little receiving blanket that I held in the middle of the night. I have a 6 year old that blows me away with the insightful questions he asks. The same baby that during the first time I fed him in the hospital at 2:00 am, as we sat there in that very dimly lit room, and I told him well you certainly aren't a Bianca ( I was convinced he was going to be a girl) he slowly blinked his eyes and I swear moved closer into my arms and smiled. As if to say, "Nope I'm me and it's nice to meet you."

So thanks to that little baby muffin I held in the diner yesterday. And thanks to that lady who walked by. Thanks for reminding me what has always been in my heart. Thank you, angels in disguise. (and also to the one that inspired this post...you know who you are)