Okay. Cards on the table. I can hardly keep something this big from my faithful readers. You deserve to know why my articles have become more and more sparse, why I can barely muster enough strength to hobble over to my keyboard and pen what motherhood means to me more than twice a month, if that.
If I had round-the-clock video surveillance inside my home, you would see a few irregularities from my normal routine. First, you would see a lot of footage of my lying face down on the couch while Dora the Explorer taught my youngsters valuable life lessons such as “Cuidado!” and “Para!” while I muttered, “Okay, you can watch one more,” groping for the remote.
You’d see me consuming at least two BLTs a day, extra mayo, (and bear in mind I pledged to a strict vegan lifestyle not six months ago) because they are the only things in the world that sound good right now.
You’d wondered where I was after 7:30pm, after all, everyone else is still awake, and the answer would be, collapsed in bed, sawing logs, physically unable to walk another step, fill another sippy, intervene in one more fight.
Yes, you’ve guessed it, we’re expecting! The sea sickness, the sheer exhaustion, the expensive packages of pre-cooked bacon, all worth it when my oldest looked up at me today with his baby sister on his lap and said, “Baby Jane is so fun and growing up so fast and we get to do this all over again with a whole new baby! Yesss!!” His “Yesss!” was punctuated with a fist pump pulled down to his waist, as if to say, “Jackpot!” and he was as sincere as I’ve ever seen him.
That’s the funny thing about a sixth baby. It’s not just my baby, it’s so very much their baby too. My oldest daughter has been poring over baby name books everyday since we told them two weeks ago. Every hug from my little boys ends with them looking up and asking, “Am I hurting the baby?”
How big is the baby today? How big will the baby be tomorrow? I keep having to come up with size comparisons they can visualize. So far the baby’s mass has been compared to a tube of lipstick, a Polly Pocket, a small pear, a small mango, a tub of play dough, and a can of condensed chicken soup. I’m not the only one who can’t wait for the big ultrasound appointment next month.
Tonight we watched our old wedding video with the kids which we haven’t watched in over a decade. The younger ones kept asking, where am I? Where am I? We told them they were in heaven, looking down and watching us, cheering that our family was finally on its way.
Now all we can think is how much we want to meet this other cheerleader. It’s enough to make us want to shout HOORAY!
Margaret Anderson is a BYU graduate, returned missionary, free-lance writer, wife and the mother of five, soon to be six small children. Read more at www.jamsandpickles.wordpress.com