Silence

I am alone.

No joke. I really am... at least four days out of the next week and a half.

Sami started Kindergarten today, and Drew is off at his two-day two-year-old class at the preschool. I had thought about running around doing errands, but it has been far too long since I have had this much quiet that I thought I'd just sit here and write something.

Right... something...

Perhaps this should be a day of tears for me. My babies are growing up. I was just sobbing about that yesterday evening, actually-- was listening to (and singing along with) a BYU Singers CD as I made dinner when "Turn Around" came on...

Where are you going, my little one, little one?
Where are you going, my baby, my own?
Turn around and you're two,
Turn around and you're four,
Turn around and you're a young girl going out of the door...

And then I was crying, looking over at my two girls sitting at the bar stools talking about things I can't recall. I had just been yelling at Sami about an hour earlier because of some fit she was throwing, and after a long day of church on my own, I had no patience for it. Suddenly at that moment, though, it seemed so trivial compared to the thought of my little girls growing up so fast-- too fast. I left my station in the kitchen and walked around to give them both a squeeze. They both asked why I was crying, so I told them. Allie gave me a sweet smile and a hug, but Sami's eyes filled with tears. She felt it, too. In that regard, she's just like me-- a little tender-hearted sap who cherishes every stage of life and struggles moving on to the next. She's the type that will cry every time she moves on to the next school, or who will fall apart if we ever have to move out of this house. I know. That was me. Still is.

Which is why I am completely dumbfounded that I'm totally composed right now. Have not cried a single tear.

Must be the end of my pregnancy. I am so focused on surviving the "end" and getting everything prepared, that maybe my brain just won't let me be sentimental today. I'm guessing that will change once the baby is born next week. I probably look at that sweet little person, fresh from Heavenly Father, and be reminded of when my other girls were that tiny, that innocent...

Well, I've done it-- now I'm crying. See? Doesn't take much.

Wow, I really miss them. I'm enjoying the quiet, but I do miss them. Maybe I really should have gone to run errands. Then I wouldn't be sitting here crying like a sentimental schmuck.

And next week this process of guiding a little spirit through mortality starts all over again. The thought had been burdening me, weighing me down like an enormous rock, leaving me not knowing how on earth I would be able to handle four. But I'm reminded that I'm asking the wrong question, because nothing on "earth" will help me. Only Heavenly help will do...

And that enormous rock now seems like a treasure.