evening thoughts

We've been taking Audrey to play at the park more and more frequently since the heat isn't as sweltering and the evenings are mild. She swings and swings while Justin and I throw the football around and I love it because we talk and talk and laugh when I throw a lame duck and he has to run after it. Also- I get to stare at him and his broad shoulders while we're tossing and admire how handsome he is.

Sometimes we're at the park at the same time that a little league football team is practicing. From a distance I watch the small, skinny 8 and 9 year olds in their great big pads and wonder about our baby boy. Justin watches too and tells me what plays they're running or explains why that boy in the orange jersey is doing push-ups or how it feels to be little and have your pads not fit right. Then he regales me with stories of how hard and rigorous football practice was, and the tales extend into his high school years. I cringe when I hear the stories of shaking, aching muscles and mean, yelling coaches but he's smiling as he tells me and I can tell that he loved and misses every minute of it.

And then I think that it's pretty lucky that I have a husband here with me to help raise this baby who's kicking underneath my ribs because I'm already having misgivings and realizing that I just don't quite understand boys.

But the little girl who yells at us from the slide and tells us to "watch Momma!" and "look Daddy!"- her, I know. I recognize so much of myself in her, and am surprised to find so much of my mother in myself as I parent her. I tell her our plans or scold her or love her and so often hear my Mother's voice coming out of my mouth. And I'm glad. She watches Sleeping Beauty and helps me make pies and 'paints' rocks with water outside and I think "I can do this, I'm doing okay". But then there are moments of defiance and stubbornness and testing boundaries and I'm confused again. Maybe girls are not so much easier to figure out than boys.

Then the sun is getting lower and lower, the shadows of the trees and playground equipment stretch longer and longer over the grass and football practice is over. Boys that look so little pick up their pads and helmets and walk to their parent's cars. My daughter that looks so big lately is begging for one more ride down the slide before we go. Justin is showing her how to climb the ladder up onto the platform and I feel this baby inside me moving and my back aches from standing.

But my back is not the only thing aching. My heart hurts at the beauty of it all- the blessing of my husband and my daughter, and our future that is uncertain and open and undecided and wonderful. That I'm going to be the mother of two children (two!) which scares me and makes me excited at the same time.

Then I thank my lucky stars and my Heavenly Father, and finally Audrey's last "one more time" on the slide is finished and we walk to the car and drive home.