Throwback Thursday: The Innocence that comes from not yet being grown up

Dear Em,
It's funny how you think things might work when you're little. I remember accidentally eating a watermelon seed & being scared to death my stomach would stretch & extend as a watermelon grew inside of me. Maybe it would be stuck in my belly forever & never come out!

I remember my little sister staring at herself in the mirror. She was turned sideways & she had popped her belly out as far as it would go. She very solemnly told me that she had a baby in her belly & when she was a big grown-up the baby would come out & she would be a mommy just like our mommy. Back then my sister & I had innocent dreams of growing up to be a cat (Jennie loves animals) & a singer, & the future would hold anything we imagined it would.

While my pregnancy didn't take many years like my little sister once thought, carrying you was sometimes every bit as frightening as growing a watermelon would have been- maybe more so. And there were certainly times that I thought you would never come out.

You have a completely different view from your own innocent eyes. You cannot wait to have children. While you've agreed that you will get married first, you want to get married & start the whole having kids thing right now. You plan to have at least thirteen kids, & you don't want to wait nine months between each one.

In fact, I walked into the living room to find you & your little best friend pregnant just the other day. Your stuffed animals babies, "popped out" just moments later. Daddy pretty much ran away in terror, laid in a fetal position, & told himself you wouldn't get married until you were at least sixty.

Ha! You keep thinking that babies just "pop out," & I will keep smiling & letting you think that is exactly what happens...as long as you don't get married until you're at least in your mid twenties & my grandbabies don't start "popping out" until after then.

I love you so,

Mommy