My youngest child along with my other three want a baby for our family. This can no longer happen as I have tried my best to explain in varying ways, but still we repeat this conversation regularly. It is most difficult for my eight year old to digest. " But why??"He asks over and over. It makes me a little sad that my youngest will never experience having a younger sibling to love on. Everyone in the family "loves" and dotes on the baby, at least until they are old enough to talk back and get into your stuff and really annoy you. He will never have this experience, but wants it so badly. He would love a baby girl he has told me on numerous occasions. This is especially endearing as he is "all boy", more gender specific than any of my others. And although he would prefer "an Asian baby girl" he will take what he can get. I find this simultaneously heartbreaking and heartwarming and often end up with a lump in my throat after a conversation with him about this. And now, I have a new sweet picture of him in my mind that makes my eyes water:
It is a few days before Christmas and our bedroom is filled with presents that have yet been wrapped. There a piles here and there among clothes waiting to be put away and clutter piling up in the distraction that this holiday brings. It is later in the day, after dinner and he is supposed to be in there wrapping his presents he has purchased at school for his family. I glance into the room to make sure he is not snooping for his own unwrapped gifts I have hidden about. He is distracted by the baby doll I purchased for his littlest cousin, herself a baby girl. He spent time with this present yesterday when I first showed it to him . And now again, there he stands with the life size baby doll which is still in its packaging, laid out on our rumpled bed, and is feeding it the little bottle that comes with. He is there in the glow of my bedside lamp, head tilted in concentration waiting patiently for the baby to finish her food. Glancing up he sees me watching him from the doorway and shyly smiles. "I thought you were wrapping?" I say. " I just want to finish feeding her so she will burp and go to sleep ," he replies in all seriousness, quickly back on task in the midst of tape and crumpled wrapping paper. I linger for a moment and then quickly whisper to his Dad to take a look. Even though my eight and a half year old little boy will never be a big brother, he will be a Daddy one day of this I am quite sure.
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