I Wanna Cat

One evening after dinner Clark and I decided to share some good news with our kids. For the most part, they all seemed to take it quite well. Jaron in particular ran immediately to Eliza who was seated in her high chair and began to chirp on and on about what we had just told him. Russell remained unaffected on Clark's lap attempting to convince Clark to finish whatever food Russell had dished onto Clark's plate. Within a few minutes, the excitement evaporated, children left to find toys to fight over and dishes remained to be cleaned.

Several nights later, after single-handedly bathing and wrestling the kids to bed a huge yawn escaped me as I was tucking Jaron in.

"Why are you tired, Mommy?" queried Jaron.

"Well, being pregnant makes me tired." I casually replied.

Jaron sat right up and exclaimed "Mommy! You're pregnant?? There's a baby in you?" Gosh where has this kid been. For a 4 1/2 year old he is typically pretty observant and usually keeps close tabs on our conversations. I'd been dropping the p-word for weeks but hoped he didn't understand what it meant.

Well . . . apparently he did. I guess telling him we were going to have a baby didn't mean the same thing to him. So the storm of questions erupted out of him.

I knew I better sit down. Too bad Russell's bed is so soft; I was tempted to lay down.

Maybe it just took a few days for it to sink in, but once it did, Jaron was bouncing-out-of-the-bed excited. He happily said to Russell, "We're going to have a baby."

Russell's quiet response, I mostly likely wouldn't have caught had I not been sitting there: "I wanna cat."

There was immediate concern on Jaron's end if the baby was sick because I had been, who will take of us when I'm at the hospital because Daddy has to go to work a lot, when am I having that baby, could I just go the hospital soon and have the baby, could he touch my tummy and feel the baby (which he told me he did), wouldn't Eliza be excited to have another baby in the house, when could he tell his friend down the street, maybe we should call Grandma and Grandpa and tell them.

Well, you get the point. This kid was excited. And truthfully, I'm so glad. Even the next morning he told Clark, "Daddy, did you know that Mommy has a baby in her?"

But I couldn't help but laugh at him but also Russell, who quiet interjected a time or two more while he lay in bed stroking his hair, "I wanna cat."

You know what Russell, I wanna cat too. But I'm sure happy we're having another baby too!