Saturday, 7:00 p.m. Things Kids Say. Waiting.

I’m sitting at our kitchen table using the “big” laptop (the one that periodically requires you to push extra hard if you want the g or the h key to work). Abe is here as well – on the little white Chromebook that we got for Christmas (to enable less jockeying for turns when homework needs doing).

Abe, I shall tell you, is nothing if not self-motivated. Part of me imagines that he has spent the entire past two full years of his life sitting at this kitchen table studying, writing essays, and solving math problems. (I’m quite sure part of him thinks he has too.) We shall not attempt to explain how Daisy, who follows his class schedule fairly closely – only a year behind, seems to never have homework. And I suppose it can’t be totally true – his always sitting here. He has a job after all. And does after-school sports. And plays basketball with his friends. And is somehow always at some church meeting or another. And a host of other things.

BUT, I still have a hard time imagining that, in not very much more time, this spot at our kitchen table will not have him in it! It’s a thought as strange as any big thing he might not be around for.

But, he’s here now. And while most of his hours of homeworking have been accomplished with siblings squabbling all about, piano being practiced nearby, Goldie turning on music while she works on something or other, me making dinner, and a g and h key that don’t readily respond, . . . tonight it is quiet. We had an early dinner, I bathed little kids for church (while shouting at medium-sized kids to shower) and, by 6:00 pm, had them all in the basement (with Chips Ahoy and popcorn) for a movie night. So. A few glorious hours of quiet up here for Abe homeworking and for me editing pictures and writing a bit.

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Summer attempted to put Mette for a nap again recently. After a relatively short spell, she returned and announced, “Mom! Mette went to bed so good that time! (Pause.) She might still scream one time . . . or . . . a thousand times. (Pause.) But that’s OK. I can handle that!”

Also, I’m not positive why it is that kids mispronouncing certain words is so blastedly charming. Nevertheless: snecret (sneecret). If Mette is keeping something on the down low, she doesn’t have a secret. She has a snecret.

My heart wallops into the back of my ribcage and does a double summersault before returning to its proper position every time she says it. “Snecret”: and the exhaustion and ceaseless demands cast upon me by that wee child are forgotten. “Snecret”: and I am overcome by the full weight of my smittenness.

And her younger brother? (The one who, just two years ago, inspired all kinds of sentimental posts and journal entries on things like “never feeling a baby kick inside of me again”. Ha!) He continues to be, primarily, a delight to raise. And he holds his own in the “saying small things that make one willing to lay their entire life at another’s feet” category. After all, he calls popcorn “gompcorn”, and, when he really wants something, he pulls this pleading petition from his limited vocabulary: “Could I? Could I, mom?”

Yes son. Whatever it is. Yes! Yes of course you could!

In other news. It’s January. (Which I suppose you all knew.) January gets a bad rap. It’s cold. It’s dark. And the holidays have ended. But, I actually kind of enjoy getting back into normal, old, boring routine. And, with no major holidays ‘til Valentine’s, it’s easy for me to feel like . . . next up is spring! It certainly isn’t the hopeful of spying your first robin of the year or of seeing tiny buds on trees. No, it’s a long way from that. (And, in truth, the early-setting darkness does seem to weigh quite heavily on me this year.) But somehow, still, I have this bright, little whisper in me: “But next! Next! Next comes spring!”

Of course if I can believe that January means . . . almost spring, then surely I should be able to allow: almost our baby arriving. (Why, baby’s due date even lands right next to the first official day of spring.)

I know logically that baby’s coming is soon. But somehow it’s tucked so significantly into a different category in my mind that I have a hard time thinking about it in the “soon” category. It’s placed, like so many things in life right now, squarely in the “waiting” category.

I think often about how much of this mortal journey involves waiting. Not knowing what something is to be. Not knowing how something will play out. Not knowing the why of something. Not knowing when or if some struggle will end. (I once read a talk where the speaker said how you don’t often hear prophets of scripture saying “why me?” in their struggles, but you do hear them saying “how long, O Lord, how long?”!)

Those paragraphs maybe give the wrong idea about the particular type of waiting going on here. It’s not some trial. And it’s not that my pregnancy has seemed long or unending (it’s actually going by incredibly quickly). But the inspiration to have this child was such a complex thing! It filled me with so many questions! There was so much I desperately wanted to understand about the why of it all and what it all meant. I felt a fierce need for answers to questions that I couldn’t even give words to. I remember writing in my journal something like, “But how? How could He even answer me and explain anything?”

But that was a silly question because somehow, miraculously, He did answer a lot of those questions that I couldn’t even properly express! I suppose I shouldn’t marvel that such a thing was possible. After all, through no mortally explainable means, he’d already managed to give me the information that there was another child for me. Why should I have thought it impossible He could tell me more? In any case, He has told me more. He’s given me answers that, like Mary, I ponder continuously in my heart; and answers that have opened my understanding to things that, like Moses, “I never had supposed”.

But with the increase in enlightenment concerning why God offered me this tenth child, and a little of their purpose, there has also come an awareness of what that means I must wait to find out.

I know that we will not just be blessed in some generic fashion, rather, I am certain there are very specific – and in many cases seemingly disconnected – blessings that will be opened up to our family through this. But I am waiting to uncover and understand what they are.

I know there are challenges that I must wait to experience before receiving the intended growth.

I know a very small bit of this child’s plans, but must wait to see exactly how that is to be accomplished.

And . . . there is the usual waiting! I don’t even know this child’s gender for crying out loud! I’m waiting  simply to find out who this person is, how they will mold into the framework of our family, and what their path will be!

I don’t know why Heavenly Father designed mortality to be so full of waiting. If it is simply to expand our faith and our patience or if there is something far more significant that occurs in the process. But, I am most definitely – with anxiousness, excitement, fear, and most of all hope – waiting.