Baby Blue PJ's

For work, I perform speech therapy with children in a couple of elementary schools. One day, before school, the PTA sponsored “Moms and Muffins.”  The children and their mothers were supposed to come early to school, pick out a donated book, and read it together while eating muffins.  As I was walking to my office, I smiled at the excitement of the children as they perused the books and the pride in their eyes as they led their mothers by the hand around the school.  I noticed one tired mother with several children around her, begging for her attention.  She was holding a dark haired baby girl in blue pajamas.  The baby was probably about 6 months old or so.  She appeared to have been awoken earlier than normal so mom could come with her other siblings.  However, she was as wide-eyed as the anxious squirrel on Ice Age.  She didn’t want to miss anything and her little head turned at every sound.  Her fists were clenched and her little spirit didn’t want to miss a thing.

 I don’t know why, but I couldn’t keep my eyes of her.  Now all babies are cute, because they are babies.  But let’s be honest, there are some that above being cute because they are a baby, only their mother can see their beauty.  This little girl wasn’t an ugly baby, nor was she an especially a crowd stopping beauty.  She was just a darling  little baby--mom didn’t even have time to put a bow in her hair.  I noticed her powder blue footie pajamas and her wispy hair.  As I watched her watch her siblings, my eyes started to well up with tears.  It was totally out of the blue—no pun intended.  My eyelids couldn’t contain the moisture and I had to quietly leave as tears rolled down my face. 

 I don’t know why on that particular day, that particular child touched my emotions.  It wasn’t even my once-a-month female emotional phase.  I went to my office and had a good cry.  I couldn’t stop weeping.  It has been a long time since I mourned my unborn children like that.  I began to wonder if I would be able to stop tears from falling.  My heart hurt.  The reality of my advancing age and diminishing opportunity to bear children hit hard. 

Perhaps on my mind was the joyous occasion of the recent birth of my dear friend Kriss’s first baby.  When we were roommates, she often said that because she was in her thirties and not married, to get all the children she desired, she would have to get hers in twos and threes.  Well, when she married last year, her husband already had three darling boys.  So, she got her ‘threes’ and was blessed with a honeymoon miracle baby.  Miracle baby because her new husband is a brain cancer survivor.  After many surgeries and medical treatments, he was not sure if he would be able to have any more children.  Apparently God wanted to send more children to this marvelous couple. 

Perhaps it was simply a reality check that I do long for children that my heart’s desire is where I believe it should be.   As I pen this post, the same emotions are flooding back and my eyes are wet.  I worry that by the time I get married, my window for bearing children will have passed.  Yes, my heart hurts.  Indeed I long to snuggle a sleeping infant.  I yearn to teach a toddler and tease a teenager that belong to me. I realize that it is unhealthy to continuously focus on this heart ache.  I know I must put my efforts and time into serving others.  I try to do this with the time and means I have been allotted. 

Back to feelings evoked by watching the blue pajamaed baby.  Lately, I have caught myself considering the wonder of our mortal bodies.  I have wondered what things our spirits won’t be able to do without our bodies…I surly hope tasting chocolate is not one of them, but who knows.  That is why I make sure I get a good dose of chocolate EVERYDAY.  I want to make sure I enjoy chocolate my last day on earth and I don’t know when my last day will be so, I must eat chocolate daily.  Moving on from my chocolate detour, maybe the sadness I felt that day was a gift from God.  He allowed me to feel sorrow because FEELING emotions may be magnified because I have a mortal body.  Maybe.  Some people may consider it a curse, but I believe it is a blessing that we can FEEL--sadness, loneliness, heart ache as well as joy, a tender hug, kissing a baby’s cheek, and a supportive arm around us.   Will we be able to experience these fully without a body?  I don’t know.  I DO know that, “…it must needs be there is an opposition in all things…” (2 Nephi 2:11).   I also know that Christ’s atonement covers not only my sins, but my pain, “…he suffereth the pains of all men, yea, the pains of every living creature, both men, WOMEN, and children…” (2 Nephi 9:22).

Although I do not enjoy the pain I felt that day, or other days that I feel left out or lonely, I am grateful for feelings.  I am also grateful for delightful baby girls in blue pajamas.  

I don't have a photo of the baby in blue PJ's but here are sweet two photos of some babies that I love...  

My youngest niece.

My friend's twins