Small confession

Have you seen Father of the Bride 2? You know that scene where they are driving down the road right after Nina finds out she's pregnant and Steven Martin is looking out of his window and seeing all the kids throwing fits and running away from their parents and Diane Keaton is looking out of hers and seeing parents and their children blissfully skipping down the sidewalk with ice cream?

I had a moment like that yesterday. I had 3 of the 4 in the suburban on our way to pick up Caroline from dance and take her for soccer evaluations. As I was passing Frankie's Cafeteria on my right, I saw this mom and dad and their daughter (she looked about 4) holding their balloons and laughing as they tried to untangle them. It really seemed like it was in slow motion to me and almost so perfect for the 5 seconds I witnessed it that it was like a movie scene.

I looked in my rear view mirror at the chaos behind me . . . Tru still blaming me because he forgot his shoes, Bo hollering because he couldn't see Tru's DS and Sascha asking for "MORE TOM AND JERRY!" Hear me say very clearly, I wouldn't trade a single one of them, nor do I regret the size of our family, but sometimes I hear this panicky voice in my head reminding me that 4 kids is a lot!

At first I felt bad for my kids because I don't know that I have ever left Frankie's laughing. Much less laughing because the balloons were tangled. Usually I am yelling, "STOP!! THERE ARE CARS!! WELL, I AM SORRY YOUR BALLOONS ARE TANGLED! WE AREN'T TAKING THEM HOME ANYWAY! YOU KNOW HOW MOMMY FEELS ABOUT BALLOONS!!"

Then I felt kind of sorry for myself because they looked like they had all enjoyed their meal and eating out is hard work in our stage of life.

But I happened to glance down at my phone (fine, I was probably going to call someone, but maybe I was just glancing in a Divine moment to rescue me from utter despair). Anyway, my screen saver is a picture of all 4 kids on our last snow day. They are all standing next to each other, they are all looking at the camera kind of smiling, and no one is annoying anyone else. A year ago, heck, 3 months ago, that wasn't possible.

So maybe in a few more months we will go to a restaurant and leave laughing and skipping and making some other mom on Rodney Parham a little jealous and a lot hopeful.