Job Security

Approximately 10 days ago Penelope and I couldn't find her favorite blanket when it was time to go to bed.  I figured it would turn up and gave her the one blanket that can serve as a substitute.  Days went by and still we didn't find it.  But a sad thing happened.  She stopped asking about it.  Even though she seemed to forget about her "bow blank" I still wondered in my mind how it could have disappeared.  I knew it had not left the house.  I hated for it to come to such an anticlimactic ending.

And then today I found it.  Libby had removed the couch cushions and there it had been the whole time, hanging out with the pencils and goldfish crumbs and toys and crayons and pocket change and puzzle pieces and paper clips and oh this isn't a blog about how dirty my couch is.

When I found it I said "Penelope!!  Look!  It's your blanket!"  And I threw it over my shoulder and she ran to me and I picked her up and she laid her head on my shoulder and we cuddled and rejoiced together.  I said, "Penelope, it's sort of sad that you're growing up and you don't really need your blanket anymore."  But she said, "But I still want it, Mom!"  And of course, she is sleeping with it as I write.

Why the story about the blanket?  I'll get to that.

I go back and forth about children and family size and what I believe, my faith in God...I have had the desire to have babies and be a mom since I was a very young child.  But as I feel possibly a call to move on from pregnancy and babies I am sad to leave behind these years.

It is an emotional roller coaster.  Just last night I was writing in my journal that I'd just like to stick them all in school so I could make art all day long.  Yet this morning, as I opened up my last issue of the Publix Baby Club I was so sad to be closing that chapter on Juliet.  It is at these times when I think about having another baby.  But then I think my mother would probably come and murder Jimmy in his sleep.

Penelope was a pretty needy toddler, and there were numerous times that we assumed the position with her blanket, in the middle of the night barely conscious, when she was sick or hurt, or just when she needed me.  I should have been glad it was lost, that I could break her of it, she is, after all, almost five.

But that security blanket, these young kids, they are my security.  My job.  When they are grown up, what the heck will I do with my time?  I've never had a problem staying busy so I know it will come.  But when I think about it, the last 11 years have been a movie I'd like to watch over and over again.

Deep in my heart, though a skeptic, I'm sure the sequel of the teenage years will be just as good as the original.  But it's FREAKING ME OUT.  Now I'm going to go steal Penelope's blanket and assume the fetal position, suck my thumb, and try to sleep.  I'm only sort of kidding.