The Fantastic Four

Last Sunday, Aaron and I were sitting in church. A few rows in front of us sat a family just like ours: 2 big brothers and 1 little sister. Theirs were a few years older than ours, and I whispered to Aaron, "hey, that's gonna be us before you know it."

"I was thinking the same thing," he said.

Then he surprised me.

"Do you think we need one more?"

I looked at him for a minute, and then smiled.

"Yes, sometimes I think we do."

"Me too."

It was such a sweet and tender moment, and it felt momentous too. We haven't really said yes! to another one. There has been a lot of maybes, and somedays and we don't know yets.

Well, Lilly slept for 15 minutes on the ride home from church that afternoon, so she was an absolute beast the whole day. And William, who knows what his problem was, but everything was a catastrophe, He too, was an absolute beast.

"No wonder we said we wanted another," I thought to myself. "Our kids weren't even with us! There's no way we could do this again!"

Isn't that always the way?

The next night, I was wandering the isles of Target, alone, and aimless. It's every Mom's favorite thing to do. Go to Target. Alone. Look at sheets, and storage solutions, maybe try on some clothes that don't really fit that great, but who cares, they're cheap!, browse the makeup aisle and check out the 70% off Christmas clearance section. It's bliss.

As I was wandering, I passed the refrigerated case and saw a bottle of Nestle Nesquik chocolate milk. "Yumm. That looks so good." And I pulled one out.

As I was chugging it, right there in the middle of the aisle, I knew. I had to get a pregnancy test.

I always crave chocolate milk when I'm pregnant.

I went home and for the first time, I was genuinely shocked when I saw POSITIVE.

So shocked that I marched right out and showed Aaron. His eyes grew to the size of dinner plates and he said, "what does this mean?"

"It means we're having another baby!"

That's right. Number 4!

We laughed and laughed. From shock. And joy. And the surprise.

We prayed together.

We were both a little shaky.

And we remembered the day before and we laughed some more.

After the idea of it settled in our minds a little bit, the first thing I did was start the name list. We have a lot more girls names than boys names.

It explained a lot. No wonder I was so tired over Christmas. I kept wondering what my problem was, where was my motivation and mentally slapping myself to get it together. Drink more coffee!

Now I am on the couch the minute Lilly lays down for a nap! The tiredness. Oh I forgot how paralyzing it is.

And for the record, I told Aaron 2 weeks or so ago, "if it wasn't impossible, I'd say I was pregnant right now." I guess it wasn't impossible and, yes Aaron, I do know right away when I'm pregnant!

So here we are, starting a new journey. It is going to be fun to share it here. Although I'll tread lightly. I'll censor what I say and not share too much. After all, if my bother hears me mention the word uterus, he just about faints.

4. 4! It's going to be wild. It's going to be great.

It's going to be fantastic!