February 8, 2005 - that thing about love -
My sweet child drives me batty. But every once in a while - and these times aren't rare, no, they happen several times daily - you get this overwhelming rush of yes, this is why I wanted kids, this is what it's about.
Like today...at the Shrove Tuesday Pancake Supper at church, Everett was being crazy-silly, running around with the cheap foil mardi gras mask on his head, picking up beads and being a pirate, falling on the floor in mock-exhaustion. I was sitting with a step-dad in the congregation, who'd met and married his son's mom when he was about eight. They can't have kids because of her cervical cancer.
And the way he was looking at Everett, longingly, like, oh, if only I could have that relationship, a little boy rolling around on the floor at our feet - it broke my heart. And I thought how very, very lucky we are.
About six months before I got pregnant with Everett I was diagnosed with HPV, the pre-cursor to cervical cancer, and I was scheduled for surgery in October. But I moved to Oregon in September, planning to re-schedule my surgery, only...later that month I got pregnant. And when I was pap-tested after birth, the dangerous cells were gone. Pushed out by birth, my OB thought.
So here I am, fertile and boy-ful, and we get to experience every minute of their lives, the crazyness and the cuteness and the part where (a little later) they hit you hard with both hands because they don't want to go home.
And then, the times when I see him lying on his pillows watching Backyardigans, or focusing on putting his tracks together, or pretending he's a pretzel (the pretzel wanted mommy to come over to the pretzel bowl with all of his pretzel friends, you know), and wow, am I in love. The times when he wakes up in the middle of the night and sits straight up in bed and says with every ounce of passion you can imagine a two-year-old mustering, "I LOVE you, mommy!" and hugs me tight. Those, those are the times when the earth stands still and there is nothing but fortune and love.
