Sometimes Being A Parent Makes You Say Bizarre Things

Kevin said the silliest thing the other day.

He was sitting at his desk (read: an old kitchen table set up in our bedroom) and looking through the doorway at Piper Finn and London.

He sighed.

And that’s when Crazy exited his mouth.

“Man, Lacey.  We need to have some more kids.”

I am sure I gasped.

Dropped something.

And suffered a neck injury as my head spun off my shoulders.

“Whuh?” Yes.  That is the sound most closely resembling the noise I made.

“WHY?” I asked incredulously.  (Obviously incredulously.  I mean – come on.  More kids?  We have six of them already.)

“Just look at them.  They’re growing up so fast.  I don’t want to miss any of this.  I’ll be so sad when they are all big.”

I thought he was crazy then.

I still do.

But I see his point.

Last week I took four of those growing-up-so-fast kids of ours to the lake.

We had it all to ourselves.

London and Mosely donned life jackets and jumped right into the deep end.  The floated in their little red jackets and shared conversations of which I could only catch snippets and threads over the ripples.  But they were clearly big girls talking about big things – serious plans and ideas.  What big kids do.  Normal.

These are the same  girls who would not wade in the shallow end without holding a hand

just last summer,

barely

one

year

ago.

Now they’re treading water twenty times their height and creating games, stories and schemes.

And just seven measly blink-of-an-eye years ago all four of these living, breathing time machines did not even exist.

Oh.

My brain can hardly stand it.

My heart can barely manage it.

No.

I don’t want to give birth to any more children.

(And regardless of what he said, I feel entirely confident that Kevin feels the same way.)

I don’t miss being pregnant.

And I don’t have some strange desire to earn more stretch marks.

But

I know what Kevin means.

I know exactly what he means.

Which is the reason why.

The answer to so many questions.

The impetus behind so many decisions.

It is the method,

the means,

the whole mess of it.

It’s part of the answer to the question, “Why do you homeschool?”

It’s part of the answer to the question, “What do you love about living at a camp?”

It’s why we say “yes” to cuddling and it’s why we work extra hard to spend quality and quantity time with only people who share our last name.

I want to always live aware of the ridiculously speedy passage of time.

So that when I look again at Mosely and London sharing life – starting middle school, driving cars, finishing high school – I will know

that I did not miss all this in-between.