The lady at the park

Today I took the kids to the park and we met a few of our friends there. We decided to go to the Elmwood park in Rocky River because it is at the end of a street and not a lot of people go there, which today that was not the case. There were so many mom's there with their kids, I could not believe it. I have never seen so many mom's and young kids at a park before, and believe me, we have been to our fair share of parks.

Of course as I took Tessa out of the baby sling to hold her, is when Carlee decided that she wanted to swing in the baby swing. I walked up to the swing, and not paying attention to anything else except for my three children, I attempted to lift Carlee with one hand up into the swing while still holding Tessa with my other. I noticed then that there was a child in the swing next to Carlee and just as Carlee was about to sit down, the mother of the child asked me if I needed help.

I laughed and say no thank you, but thought to myself how crazy I must have looked trying to put Carlee into the swing. I told the mother that I didn't know what I was doing with three kids. She said that it looked like I was doing a good job and that she had five children herself. I was very surprised. It just doesn't seem like a lot of people outside of Utah have more than two kids.

Then we were talking about how the first child is a total life change and the second child is just a minor re-adjustment. I told her I felt like Tessa was the easiest for me and she agreed about her third and then she continued on to say that she felt that the third child is always easy because it is God's way of saying thank you for having more children and for giving them the opportunity to come to earth.

As she said that I had one of those moments where I felt so good about being a mother of three children and everything that she said just made perfect sense!! I know that there are other mothers out there who feel ashamed sometimes when they tell people they are pregnant with their thrid and fourth child. For example the frist child is always so exciting, then with the second everyone is waiting and wondering when you are going to be pregnant with number two. Child number three is oh wow, okay, really, has it been almost three years since you had your second. Then child number four, people start to freak out and wonder if you are going to produce your own sports team.

Anyway, we should never be or feel ashamed about having children. I too agree with the lady at the park, and no, Andy and I are not pregnant with child number four.