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It’s been a month now… can’t believe how fast the time is going already. As stated in my last post, however, I am perfectly clear about the super sonic speed in which these days race away. Still, I am amazed by the joyously painful, or painfully joyous (depending on the moment) life of parenting. I am tired, and I am thankful. I am physically beginning my return to “normalcy” but still have a long way to go (YMCA, here I come!). I am SO happy to know that he is our last child, but still there is a little (mushy) part of myself that mourns the “never return” of life inside my womb.

We have survived a little bout with thrush. We are still surviving the transitions of an almost-two-year old, big brother. We are making it through those midnight feedings and dirty diapers every half hour (AD is a pooping machine!). These things are just small prices to pay for the real good stuff…

Oh, that yummy baby breath! I love it. The smell and feel of a kiss to the crook of a baby neck…mmmm mmmm. The funny newborn expressions and the precious newborn sounds. The locking of eyes between one that knows plenty about the world and the one whose story has barely been started. The feelings of protectiveness of that same one for the other. The looks of adoration that flow from a father to his newest son. The complete dependence of a brand new human being upon the family God chose for him…miraculous!

Thank You Lord for this one last “go” at it, we are honored.

So…this husband of mine…he thinks he’s pretty funny. He’s been getting a big kick out of watching me juggle two baby boys (I still nurse D’Lo) between two boobies (as D’Lo would put it). “Booby, booby, booby!” my twenty-two month old demands of me at his whim. These particular words, in any random order, are his favorites: Mommy, booby, bed, night night, eat…and of course “NO” if his new brother happens to have taken his place under the sacred nipples of life, lol.

Back to this husband of mine. Let me start off by saying that he loves seeing his sons nurtured in this way. Having missed out on this type of mommy loving in his own childhood, I clearly see the adoration in his eyes whenever I am kissing, hugging, nursing, cuddling, etc. any of his children. With that out of the way, I gotta also let  you all know that, contrary to the truth, Antonio Sparrow thinks he is a comedian. It was bad enough that he actually found delight in calling my breasts milk jugs as we traded places in the shower (I was getting out, he was getting in). He gave them a little tap and smiled and renamed them Milk Jugs. OK, this gets way worse. Next thing I know, he’s in there muttering to himself, which is nothing new as he often talks to himself (I told him that was fine as long as he didn’t answer himself back). Then he loudly blurts out, “Hey Baby, what do you call a cow that walks on two legs?”  I’m thinking, what in the  h-e-double hockey sticks is this man asking me? “Um, I don’t know Baby, what?”  To which he giggles (yes, a grown man giggling)… “Mama!”

Hold up! Is my husband calling me a cow? This being the typical response of a woman who just gave birth and is not quite feeling, hmmm, what’s the word… intact at all.  Awww, beautiful clarification, “Get it? milk, cow, baby, two legs meaning human?…No?” as his tickled brown eyes peeked at my reaction from over the shower curtain.  “No.” I answered. “Really?” he inquired. “Really, NO.” was my immediate reply.

Did I dash his hopes of bringing that joke to any kind of life? Lord, I hope so…

Did he dash my hopes that anytime in the next decade he may look at my breasts as sexual objects? Um, most definitely.

It’s been a month now since Star returned to Mississippi to live with her mother. Almost three months since Fayzonn made the same choice. It hurts me to say it, and it brings joy to me at the same time…this new situation we find ourselves in is so natural that it makes the last fifteen years of our lives seem almost more like a book we once read. Am I concerned about the kids? I love them with all my heart, of course I am. How could I not be? I’ve been doing their mother’s job for so long now that we might as well have changed their last names to Sparrow. It’s hard to believe that just a short year ago, we still had four of the seven still at home with us. I can’t say this ended quickly, because we poured our everything into them for fifteen whole years, but it certainly did end abruptly…if that makes sense.

I still see Rex almost daily, to feed him, or give him his meds, or the twice a month trip to get groceries, or what have you. I see Shade almost daily as well, because she is my girl and a big part of my life. Not to mention that she is a married woman now and I am getting so much joy out of connecting with her on this level. I see Antone every few weeks or so, seemingly the most when he needs help with something, but that is to be expected since he is only eighteen. I haven’t seen Daniel since 2003. I miss him. I worry about him. I get so confused by the choices he continually makes that ultimately return him to a prison cell in Georgia. DaShawn, Fayzonn, and Star are all back in Mississippi now, ages 20, 17, and 16. I know they are not babies anymore, unlike back in the day when they sat, hungry, on a dirty floor. As I stated in my “About This Nest” page, sometimes a kid just wants to be with their mother, regardless of the type of care she provides, simply because she’s their mother, and I am learning to be at peace with that. After all, I do have five kids of my own who need me, and who (with the exception of the last, born just three weeks ago)  have had to share me for far too long.

I ask that you all keep us in your prayers as we continue this strange, yet exciting, transition going on in the Sparrow household. Most of all though, I ask that you keep the rest of the kids covered in prayer as they also are making life’s difficult changes, some without my hand to hold, some succeeding, some just trying to find their way.

Protect and keep us all Father, In Jesus’ name, Amen…