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About Southern cross. (Savannah, Ga.) 1963-2021 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 31, 2017)
r Southern Cross, Page 6 4C ee-Ruh-Lee!” came shout- Xving across the kitchen table toward the living room. “What now?” I asked over the morning news show. “Ree Ree Lee (AnnaMarie) just spilled all of her yogurt on the floor,” said Eli two seats over, whose voice sounded more like a disappointed mom with both hands on her hips than a toddler in a booster seat. “We’ll figure it out,” I respond ed as I headed over to the table to wipe up what amounted to one spoonful of yogurt. Separated by one year and four days, Eli and AnnaMarie might as well be twins. Well, maybe frater nal twins. The best description of their relationship would be more like an old married couple. Once, on our way to Orlando, the two of them argued over directions from their car seats. Eli thought we should go “this way” and AnnaMarie said, “No Eli, we go the other way.” When they play dress up in the costume bucket, AnnaMarie would suggest Eli be the male lead in the Disney movie “Tangled,” only to be rebuffed by Eli that he was “Eli Gregory Halcombe. I’m not Flynn Rider. That’s ugly.” They have both criticized the other for having his or her shoes on the wrong feet, or getting too dirty while playing in the dirt. In fact, I’m currently getting an Columns Rooted earful from across the house about how “I get up, and Eli came out and opened the door and went to mommy and she was asleep. He not posed to do that.” Every bit of their back-and-forth banter is ultimately rooted in love in love and what’s best for the other. That love shone through earlier in the week when my return to the school halls also ushered in a return of the back-to-school com municable bug at our house. The bug hit AnnaMarie hardest, cm^n. "What do you want to fight over? The last sugar cookie or the last chocolate cookie? ©2010CNS Seasons of Motherhood I read with great joy and excite ment the news of my fellow columnist, Jason Halcombe,' and his family expansion pack! What an exciting time - we are so happy for Magan and Jason. Congratulations on the new little one. It still surprises me, here and there, when a rash of pregnancy announcements surface and I’m not among them. It’s just an observa tion, and at this point, it doesn’t carry with it much emotion. Babies are indeed a gift from the Lord, a blessing to be celebrated. And for many years, whenever a few people were announcing a new baby, Paul and I tended to be among them. Having a new baby every few years, a person starts to feel like they are in the “baby club.” It’s an excellent place to be, but also carries with it all the roller coast er vibes of life with tiny humans. You learn to live on less sleep, to endure some level of chaos. It’s wonderful and stressful and so exciting. Life with a growing fami ly is an adventure. And then, you get so caught up in the forward motion of family life; you forget to notice how quickly you are moving. You acknowledge it and can’t believe it, and the number of candles on the birthday cakes keep getting higher. But still, it’s life and it’s all part of the deal. And then something strange hap pens. You look up or step back. You get to a point where you’ve had enough time to collect your self, and you realize, hey, we have left a particular season of family life and are headed into something different. So it is with Paul and me, with our family in this crazy new sea son. Our baby is going into second grade. We are no longer among the people announcing a new baby. If it seems like I’m sad, well...I’m not sure. I can’t tell. Of course, there is a part of a per son that always recognizes and celebrates the gift of new life. Welcoming a new human being into the family is always beautiful and good. But as my husband likes to say, “Someone has to be last. There will eventually be the last baby.” And the funny thing with the last baby is you tend not to announce that - not in the Catholic Church anyway. You have that sweet baby and keep doing life and next thing you know, another baby has not come along, and your youngest is seven! Last week at Mass I sat behind a family that had just had their eighth child and in front of them a good friend of mine who just had her ninth. And because my boys are getting bigger and also serve on the altar, I was a person sitting in a pew with just a handful of my kids. What a strange feeling. And I had this thought, as I sat there feeling like I was getting away with something - surrounded by bigger kids and not more little squirming toddlers and beautiful babies. The thought I had was, our God is a God of the ages. For the longest time, my identity as a mother came from my times of being pregnant and having small children. That’s the season I was in and while it was very hard at times, I loved it deeply. And now, here, with bigger kids Thursday, August 31, 2017 causing a very painful diaper rash that didn’t seem to want to heal itself. We tried everything: A&D ointment, calmoseptine, and even bathing her bottom in oatmeal. It was during one of those baths that Eli wandered in and sat at the foot of the bathtub. “Poor Ree-Ruh-Lee,” Eli said. “It’s okay my sweet sister.” He sat there and kept AnnaMarie company for the rest of her bath. A couple of months earlier the roles were reversed when Eli dropped a weight on his finger and split it open like an overcooked hot dog. For the rest of the day, AnnaMarie kept checking on him and saying, “Poor Eli,” and trying to help him stay comfortable. The book of Proverbs (17:17) says that “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for a time of adversity.” So, while there will likely be another argument on the sofa tonight as Eli shouts at AnnaMarie, “Don’t tuck me in,” and she yells back, “you’ll get cold,” we’re confident this couple of old souls has their hearts exactly where God called them to be: rooted in love (1 Cor 13:4-8). Jason Halcombe has five sons and a DAUGHTER. He AND HIS WIFE, MAGAN, ARE MEMBERS OF IMMACULATE CONCEPTION Church, Dublin. and no more babies and maybe, at this point, knowing that six will be the number of children we have, well I’m in a new place. Motherhood isn’t about pregnan cy and sleepless nights but about teenagers and sleepless nights. It’s about parenting bigger kids and all that comes with that. And God is a God for that too. He’s in the vocation of young mothers, and he is here with the moms of bigger kids, too. What I have to remember, as I move towards this new season, is to focus on the duty of this moment, the one right now, and do whatever God asks me to do. That is what makes our faith timeless - that when we keep God in the center of everything we do, what we are doing becomes something beautiful for him. Rachel Swenson Balducci is a freelance WRITER AND MEMBER OF MOST HOLY TRINITY Church, Augusta. She can be reached at RSBALDUCCI@DIOSAV.ORG.
