She’s funny. She likes to send me pictures of cats and
tells me that she loves me and asks me to be her friend. I love that. I love
her.
I love all the
kids. I love watching them grow. I love watching them become their own person.
I always thought I would have a lot of kids. For a long
time I wanted 5. I had names picked out and furniture and dreams. I had dreams.
I babysat and nannied and cared for so many children for
a long time. I thought I knew so much about so much. There was a time when I
had changed more diapers than all of my sisters put together. And I was so
proud of this. I was so arrogant.
So much time has passed and that arrogance has fallen to
wisdom and now I understand how ignorant and naïve I really am. I understand
now how little credit the act of changing diapers actually grants you in
comparison to loving and raising a human. I understand, that in truth, I don’t even
remotely understand what it means to be a parent, to love your child, to be
solely responsible for another human.
There are 12 children: Haydn, Louise, Jonah, Ava, June,
Sophia, Caroline, Corinne, Sadie, Olivia, Rosalie, and Mary.
Mary is the youngest. The youngest is now four.
For years and years we had baby after baby after baby.
And now, the baby isn’t a baby.
That time in our family has passed.
I always thought I would have a lot of kids. I had
dreams.
