Yes, again.

This is especially for you, R!

 A week ago last Thursday night, March 31, I took a little test.


It was positive.

It's hard to articulate how life can change forever in a few seconds. From the short walk from the bedroom to looking down at a little purple plastic strip on the bathroom counter. From two to three. From blessed to blessed again.

I'd realized earlier in the week that, stupidly, I'd not really been paying attention to certain biological signs. So I picked April 1--insert fool's jokes here--to wait to see what happened and then take the test. I told Papa this over supper on Thursday, and he said, "Why torment yourself? Just take it now." I need his common sense so badly.

So I took it just before bath time for the boys, and there we were, Papa and I, grinning at the purple strip and each other and hugging and hyperventilating (me) because, well, even if you're pretty sure sure of something, there's nothing like actually knowing. Papa's memorable quote at the moment of knowing: "Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Wait--should I say, 'Oh, girl'?"

We plunked the boys in the bathtub, and as I lifted little S into the tub I found myself crying, sobbing. Papa asked me if I was okay. I managed to say, "Yes. I just realized that he isn't my baby anymore." It's not that I want S to stay a baby forever, or even that we didn't pray for another baby after him. We did. Perhaps it's just that our family right now will never be the same again, and that is a beautiful reality. But it reminds me that our children will never stay young, that we must cherish each moment with them.

So I needed a few minutes to myself later, and I got it by--what else?--visiting the bathroom again. I wanted to pray something appropriate. "Is there a psalm that speaks to motherhood?" I wondered. Oh, well--I grabbed our Reading the Psalms and turned to the bookmark. The end of Psalm 22:

²⁷All the ends of the earth shall remember
   and turn to the LORD,
and all the families of the nations
   shall worship before you.
²⁸For kingship belongs to the LORD,
   and he rules over the nations.
 ²⁹All the prosperous of the earth eat and worship;
   before him shall bow all who go down to the dust,
   even the one who could not keep himself alive.
³⁰Posterity shall serve him;
   it shall be told of the Lord to the coming generation;
³¹they shall come and proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn,
   that he has done it.


Families. Posterity. Coming generation. A people yet unborn. "He has done it." He has done it, indeed. Praise Him!