Oh, Do You Have Two???

While having our pest control technician out at the house, I unexpectedly received a question that I haven't had to deal with much lately. "How many kids do you have?" Of course, as you walk in the house, you see our family portrait back when it included Olivia, but I suppose you could assume that Samuel was the baby in the picture if you weren't really paying attention. After all, he was in my arms the minute she walked in and with no other kids running around, why not? With immediately seeing Sam, she started talking to me about her own 12 week old and all of the things he is currently learning/discovering.

We continued to make small talk until she arrived at our "guest bedroom." I put that in quotations, because that's what it *should* be. Ever since we brought Samuel home, it's just been a storage room since I haven't found the motivation to set it all up after switching the rooms around. Anyways...as she walked in, I immediately forewarned her that it's a mess. She quickly dismissed that, but then saw the girly wallpaper and bed and said, "Oh, do you have two kids?!?!" In hopes of avoiding any further talk about it, I quickly said, "Well, our daughter passed away." She responded as you would expect -- "Awhhhhhhh" -- and then continued on with what she was doing. I just thought to myself...if you only knew our history. But there I was, not in the mood to elaborate. Of course, with giving that response, I began to question myself as to why I only mentioned Olivia. Was it because that was the *easy* way out since that room implied having a daughter? It gets to be too much of an explanation if I go in more detail and talk about all three of our angels. With the simple response that I gave, she said, "Ahhh," and moved on. That was easy enough. But, of course, immediately after that, I wished I had gone in more detail. This sort of thing is never easy, is it?

After she sprayed the guest bedroom, she went on to Samuel's room and began telling me all about her newborn son. They were sweet comments and I'm happy for her, but I found myself lacking interest in hearing any of it. I hate that I have such a bitter/angry spirit at times...many times. I sometimes wish that having our sweet boy would knock that all out, but I still find it creeping up on me like I did that day. I wish it wasn't like that.

It's little moments like the other day that I'm just continually reminded of what we will always struggle with. After the pest control technician left, I couldn't help but just stare at our sweet little girl's picture, while holding on to sweet little Sam. I'm so thankful that we have had all four of our babies -- I just wish all four were here with us now.

With that, I suppose it's time to figure out how to decorate our entry way now that Samuel is here. Since I don't want to take down the family portrait with Olivia, I suppose a collage may be in order. In fact, I'm tempted to put a few of our family pictures up from years past. I will forever laugh about what a friend of ours said after seeing the picture below. He said that now that Samuel's here, Obadiah will probably look at this picture when we're gone and think, "Yeah...that's how things used to be..."

(Taken during R&R in July 2004)