Weary, but worth it!

How did I ever manage when the kids were all so little?  Every now and then some exhausted young mother asks me this question.  In fact two different people have mentioned it this week alone.

Usually I just answer with a flippant remark like "I have no idea."  It's all such a blur.  If I ponder it very long, the memory returns, but I still only vaguely recall what it was like on a daily basis.  Like any other challenge in life, you just do what you have to do.

Yesterday someone asked specifically what it was like when Jim had to travel, leaving me at home alone with two babies under the age of two.  At the risk of sounding like the you-think-you-have-it-bad old lady missionary, I have to admit that it was sometimes extremely difficult.

The one occasion that stands out in my mind was the time Jim made a trip to Guatemala City to do some errands.  I was left with no car, no phone, and no one to talk to except the two babies.  And I was pregnant with Mikey.  The day Jim was to have returned, he never did.  If the car had broken down someplace, he had no way of letting me know.  Likewise, I had no phone to call friends in the city to see if they had any idea what had happened.

After waiting an extra day, I began to worry.  After the kids were in bed, (I still can't believe I did this!), I left them asleep in their cribs, and ran in the dark to the nearest neighbor who had a telephone.  I called the Wycliffe base in Oaxaca City, and circulated the word that Jim had not arrived, asking them to check and see if anyone there could verify what day/time he left, and which road he had taken.  There were two roads, one along the coast, and one through the mountains, that led to our town.

Then there was nothing I could do but wait until morning, when I would call back and see if anyone had news for me.  It was a nerve-wracking night of imagining life as a single mom with three little ones.

To this day I can't remember what had happened to the car, causing his delay, but that was one of the longest days of my life.

Having children closely spaced wasn't easy.  We had few modern conveniences, and ... yeah, it was just plain hard. 

1988

When Mikey came along, things just got more chaotic.  By the time Hannah was born, I had four children five and under.  I could glorify those years as the "good ol' days" - and in many ways they were such fun times of happy chatter and clutter around the house, but I would never want to deceive anyone setting out to follow in my footsteps.  It was also hard.  No disputing it.  

The crazy thing is that ten years later, we had three more children spaced exactly like the first three.

1989

1991

Now that all four of these "babies" are in their 20's, and all three boys are married, I have to say that it was well worth it.  If I had it to do all over again, I wouldn't change a thing.