Is my belly big enough to house three children?

Most mothers worry while they are pregnant. Have they felt the baby kick in awhile? Will everything come back alright from the test they took? How will the delivery go for both parties? In so many ways, pregnancy is one of the few times that you can really protect your children. You don’t have to worry as much about the choices you make, the decisions you choose and the controllables to keep them out of harms way.

Last night Noah slept (until 4am) in his own crib in his own room for the first time. It was a hard night for me. I heard every sound and worried if I didn’t hear a sound. With each step a baby takes away from those days of being inside you, even as “ready” or appropriate as it may feel, it is hard.

I’ve had an ongoing struggle with Drew going to camp and swimming without me. He has had several near misses in the pool where I feel that I have single-handedly saved his life. Without me there, who will let the lifeguards know that he has gone under?

We make choices each and every day. Decisions that effect or don’t effect your life majorly. In a world where people can no longer safely go to school, see a movie at a theater or attend/participate in a marathon, how do any of us stand a chance? Is it all completely left up to fate or do we play a part?

If I can hear Noah, will that keep him safe from SIDS? If I am always poolside with Drew, will that keep him from drowning? Or is there some master plan that determines when it’s our time? And if that’s the case, how could that plan be so unfair that it would take an 8 year old from his parents? Why does the master plan include school children being murdered?

Upon news of the Boston marathon, I wanted to keep the news off with fear of Drew hearing about what happened. If I’m so completely lost with the answers to describe why this would happen and what we could do to keep ourselves safe, how could I possibly help Drew through something like this. But I’m not sure shielding him from news like this, nor keeping him away from the pool will do either of us any service. So instead we turned on the news. We watched the explosion and he asked basic, almost five year old questions. And I tried my best to answer these questions in a basic, almost five year old equivalency.

In so many ways, I would like to keep those children in my belly away from all the terror in this world. My body certainly could not handle that strain, and they are bound to have to go out and experience life (as ugly as it may sometimes be). And this is just another example of how parenting would be so much easier if it came with a manual – how to keep your kids safe and how to explain to them that the world is sometimes a devastating place.