Rhonda sent me a meme that read, “The book we actually need is What to Expect 17 Years After You’re Expecting”.
There’s a line in a Brandi Carlisle song that says,
“Welcome to the end of being alone inside your mind.
You’re tethered to another, and you're worried all the time.”
On one of my sweet baby’s birth announcements I included this quote by Elizabeth Stone, “Making the decision to have a child - it is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.”
A friend’s son recently began boot camp. She asked some friends to pray for him during his training. She included his mailing address in case we wanted to send notes to encourage him. My brother was a Marine. I watched him graduate from the same facility decades ago. I wrote her son a note this week because I’m continually learning that it takes the whole lot of us to love and to look out for one another’s babies. (Particularly when they are no longer babies, it seems.)
I actually referred to my fourteen year old as my baby multiple times today and he did not approve.
I persisted though. He IS my baby. Every last one of these six children of mine is still my baby - even the one turning THIRTY next month.
This is how it works.
I am my dad’s baby too. I was my mom’s.
This is the way the whole thing happens.
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