A comment about Comments

I've thought about keeping a little list of the comments I get when people, mostly strangers (but not always), find out I'm pregnant with number four. It must be an Orange County thing because people on the other side of the country didn't think a thing of it when my SIL had her fourth. They have bigger families out there, I guess, and out here most people are used to two maaaaybe three kids. I get that, but really, four isn't that big of a deal. It's not like I'm having four at one time or anything, I really don't see it as something to raise eyebrows at. But then again, it's what I've always wanted, so to me four sounds really normal. Circling back... I've received some interesting responses. Most often I hear, "I don't know how you do it" to which I reply, "Awesome God and fantastic husband." To me it's all relative to what you know. One child can be just as challenging as three children. And first time moms are just as consumed with motherhood as fourth or fifth time moms, it's all sort of relative. I think the slight difference is that you don't necessarily know (or at least I didn't) how "easy" you have it with one child until you have two. Then two seems like a break when you have three and so on. Many a conversation between Mark and myself go something like this:

Me:I need to run a few errands, can I leave the kids?
Mark: You take two, I'll keep one.
Me: I'll take one and be gone for 35 minutes, or I'll take two and be gone for an hour.
Mark: Ok, leave two. I'll take Ben, but not Troy.
Me: Ok, Troy's with me then. Addie stays.
Mark: Deal. 35 minutes, go.

I had Troy with me when I had my first ultrasound and the technician said, "Oh, will this be your second baby?" "No, my fourth." I said. Looking straight at me she said, "Your fourth? You DO know how this works, right?" Which is funny only because my neighbor said the exact same thing. The technician was a skeptic apparently, because right after that she said, "Well at least it's not twins". Um, thank you? But don't worry, I won her over. By the end of my visit she was introducing me to the other technicians saying she wanted to adopt me. Clearly the woman had some "filter" issues. (Don't worry mom, I told her I already had the best mom in the world. ;-) )

A lady with two children and I started talking yesterday and she asked the ages of my kids, 4.5, 2.5, 1 and one on the way. Her response was, "Wow, four kids... You must really love children." Taken at face value that response is fine. I do really love children. But after it sat with me for a minute I realized my hope is that any mother, no matter how many kids she has, would really love children. A mother of one should really love children as much as a mother of 18, right? After talking with a friend about this I decided she was really saying I must really love the job aspect of being a mom, because loving children and loving the job of raising them is two different things in my book. I actually dislike the "work" of being a mom and don't feel like I'm very good at that part. I'm really good at playing and getting dirty and being spontaneous and thinking my kids are hilarious and geniuses when they're really not, but the meals and the picking up after and discipline and modeling a Christ-like love at all times is very difficult for me. It takes forethought and effort. It's a lot of work. I'm not a fan of work, but I am a fan of children. Jesus LOVED children. He used them so many times throughout the Bible to teach us big people big lessons. I think that's why Mark and I get so excited when we think about our kids, and even our friends kids, and even kids we don't even know, because we think about how each child is this amazing gift from the Lord. It's like He's saying, "Here. Here is this precious one. I can't wait for you to find out who I've made this child to be!" and we can't wait, what a gift!