Calmly carrying a whining, cranky 19 month old, I walked over to our mini bar area in the living room and selected a glass. I poured it full from a bottle of 19 Crimes Cabernet Sauvignon, balancing the glass as I walked to my kitchen patio, doing my best to keep a temper-throwing child from knocking it from my hand. Seemingly unruffled by her latest fit, I told Alexa to play some relaxing music, pulled my chair back and set my glass down on the table. Realizing I wasn’t walking outside to entertain her in some way ignited a new firestorm of protesting cries. I removed her from my lap, took a deep sip of my Cabernet, and tilted my head back, closing my eyes. All I wanted in that moment was to be the mother of 3 teenagers again. That thought came so quick, I was afraid for a second that I had said it out loud. Though I was so exhausted, I knew I should feel guilty about having that thought. Except, right then and there, I wasn’t.

Don’t get me wrong. Being a parent of all teenagers had its own set of challenges on a daily basis. Endless friends of the kids would be over at all time of the day. Cars would be parked and blocking our way in the driveway, homework scattered all over the kitchen table, bags of opened sunflower seeds in nearly every room (plus his dang “spit cups”), and it was an every day battle to get Keely to clean up her bedroom. The most tiresome thing I recall was simply trying to be everywhere for everyone. I was Dalton’s chauffeur (plus half of his friends) and I loved it. I found out so much gossip from having those boys in my car. Then, of course, there was always the football games we attended to support Colton and the basketball games to watch Keely cheer. Life was busy, but it wasn’t a “Good Lord, I’m so freaking tired, my whole body aches, and why doesn’t this baby ever sit still?” kind of busy.

Let me say that, in Dawsyn’s defense, she has been really sick. She has viral pneumonia and it probably stemmed from a bad cold she was fighting prior to that. All I know is that for 13 nights straight, she has coughed and make this horrible whining noise while NOT SLEEPING AT ALL. She’s a horrible sleeper anyway, then mix in a sickness and its exponentially bad. I do truly feel sad for her. She is hurting and can’t really understand why. The only form of communication she knows is to cry and whimper. I think I’m trying to say that doing this at 41 feels much different from when I was in my early 20’s. And that’s not even mentioning the 30 extra lbs I can’t seem to lose. (That has been such an exciting perk of this last pregnancy). The extra weight is most likely the culprit for my plantar fasciitis – WHICH FEELS HORRIBLE BTW.

I do not regret the decision to have Dawsyn whatsoever. She is a blessing and has helped to heal our hurting family. I just have THOSE DAYS where I think about how different my life was 3 ½ years ago. Mainly, I believe I have forgotten how much work toddlers are. I smile when I think back to how smoothly I raised three of them under five years old in what seems like another lifetime. Back when I had the stamina to go, go, go. Back when it didn’t take me 10 seconds to rise to my feet from a sitting position after reading books to Dawsie on the floor. Despite being a little older, I still manage to do everything she wants to do in a day. Her batteries never seem to wear down. It’s full-force busyness until she crashes for a SHORT nap. Any chance I get, I try to get Colton, Carly or Keely to play with her so I can get at least a 30 min reprieve. Then I’m good to go again!

One day Dawsyn will ask questions about Dalton. Questions about what happened to him and questions about why we waited to so long to have her. At some point in her life, she will understand that she wouldn’t be here if her brother would have lived. We will have to be very careful explaining to her how much we loved Dalton (and Colton and Keely). Maybe we tell her Dalton went to live with Jesus and he is waiting on the rest of us there. Eventually, we will explain to her how much our hearts hurt and we needed a little miracle. And then I will share that God placed the idea in my heart about welcoming another little baby into our world and she was that baby. I pray she accepts that because it is the truth.

So how did our night end after I chugged my glass of wine? I picked up the grumpy, whimpering little girl and gave her a bath. Put her pj’s on her while she fought every aspect of that task. Walked into her room, turned off the lights and turned on her white noise machine, sat down in my glider and got ready to nurse her. Yes, we are sill doing that. I let out a sigh of relief that the end of the day had finally come. Sitting there I could feel every sore muscle from holding her nearly that entire day. My hair was a mess and I was trying to remember if I had brushed my teeth that morning. Then, completely out of the blue, she stops nursing and pulls back to look me in the eye. She smiles and blows me kiss.

I smiled back and told her I loved her. I sat there wondering if that kiss came from her or if it came from someone who knew his momma needed something like that. It didn’t matter. It was perfect.

“The best use of life is love. The best expression of love is time. The best time to love is now.”– Rick Warren