True Confessions

I'm a little sheepish to admit this, but here goes.....I never really used to be a huge fan of little kids. It's true. If you were to place in front of me a baby kitten or puppy and a little baby, I would beg to give one of the little pets a snuggle without giving a second glance to the baby. I have always made newborns cry and I found them - along with toddlers - to be quite gross!

This is one reason why we waited so long to have children. Both of our jobs involved junior high and teenagers - which is the age I always loved most - so when we came home, we liked it QUIET.....and NEAT! I actually sometimes wondered if I was really even cut out to have children. I wasn't sure if I was the maternal type or not. Even during my first pregnancy, I sometimes felt as though a little alien had invaded my body! There were days that I wondered: "What have I done?" We were told that we would probably have fertility issues so we should give ourselves a couple of years. We'd already been married over four years at the time, so we thought - hey, probably in a year or two we'll be ready, so we might as well throw caution to the wind! Well, let me tell ya - we are not infertile!

I remember when Kaden was first born, my mother-in-law was giving him snuggles in the hospital and he started to cry. She immediately said, "Oh, he needs his mother," and promptly handed him over. I can vividly remember a brief moment of panic thinking: "Okay. Here goes. Now the whole world will see that I am truly a fraud, because they're all going to see that I'm just going to make him cry harder!" And then an amazing thing happened. As soon as he was in my arms, he immediately stopped. He knew that I was his mommy. He knew me. From that moment on I knew that I was going to be okay, and I FELL in love. :0)

And in recent years, an even more amazing phenomenon has taken place. I started craving another baby....like REALLY craving one! And even after the birth of our wild child who had major freak out sessions his entire first five months of life, I think that I really want ANOTHER one! Secretly, deep down, I kind of want a really big family! We'll take one baby at a time, mind you, and Kev is kind of feeling like our quiver might possibly be full....but we'll see!

AAAAAAAND to top things off......I'm really LOVING babysitting my friends' kids! Miracle of miracles! I joke that I am a glorified nanny for all of my friend's who have their master's degrees, but I am really falling in love with their children. I am constantly being reminded of the truths in Scripture where Jesus talks about the little children - about what a blessing they are, and about how much HE loves them! I am seeing them through His eyes. I am wanting to savor them, to build into them, and to seek to use these times to bless them and love on them as opposed to merely just seeing these hours as a chance to make a few extra bucks. Good stuff!