Mae Mae, you complete us

I never knew I needed four kids. I never knew I wanted four kids. And I was never more sure of this than after I received a positive pregnancy test a mere months after our third child was born.
But what was done was done, and Matt and I were left to deal with the aftermath, as impossible as the circumstances might have been.
And the times didn’t get any easier, because while adjusting to being outnumbered with the other wild ones, I battled first-trimester fatigue and eventually a last trimester-back problem.
But Masen came, just like the doctor had promised, in January 2008.
You’d think by my fourth time in the hospital in as many years, it would be a walk in the park. Not so with this guy. After the rocky delivery, he spent some time in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and our final night in the hospital hallway waiting out tornadoes.
Oh, yes, life with four was off to a great start.
And the fun hasn’t stopped, even though we get more sleep now and the nursing phase and baby food are gone.
Challenges come in the form of taking an afternoon sprint to catch the little twinkle-toed man before he makes it to the traffic-laden road.
Or getting him off the kitchen table where he is standing.
Or redressing him after he takes off all his clothes and comes up and says, “Uh, oh!”
But little Mae Mae, our wanderer, has added an element of completeness to our brood. Our lives wouldn’t be the same without the guy who lays his entire body on top of the dog and rubs his face into his fur. Gotta love it.
There are very few grown-ups who are so content and happy with just waking up, eating and playing.
And I know he will grow out of it, the other three did. But for right now, since we’re done having babies and I can bask in the happenings of daily life, relishing the little things with my little guy, I plan to be content.
I try to absorb his enthusiasm and store it away in a hidden place to use again some day when my kids are all teenagers and happy smiles are few and far between.
This time in our life when our children are 5, 3, 2 and 1 is precious and irreplaceable.
And so as I hear our fourth and final child run with the little pitter-patter that is unique to him, I can think back on the moment when I first found out he was coming. Life seemed impossible.
But now that the impossibility and I have survived nearly two years, I can’t imagine a life with only three.

As seen in the Lawrence County Record www.lawrencecountyrecord.com