The high hair

I found a high chair at a yard sale when Rodney was one; not just any high chair, the high chair I had always wanted. Small, simple, wooden, classic. Rodney ate in for the next 18 months. 

A few weeks ago I sat reading during "quiet time", I glanced up and noticed it quietly sitting in the dining room corner. We only eat in there for parties or when we feed the missionaries, so I hardly even see it anymore, and when I do I just glance and then move on.

 I looked at it silently and wondered, is it waiting for someone ? Oh how this question has infested my mind and encompassed my heart. I wish there was an easy answer, an easy way to say "yes! We should have another baby!" Without looking around afterwards and laughing. Why would a baby want to come to our family? We already have four kids, FOUR. Today that's the equivalent of 20. The toy room has had micro beads strewn across the carpet for three days. We ate cereal last night for dinner.

Even without the myriad of parenting mistakes I make on a daily, sometimes hourly basis, I have the awesome facts that my dr politely informed me about what the babies did to my body (not awesome). And even despite all of that, we just had an ectopic pregnancy this Christmas and surgery in March because of it to boot. Bonus fact! I had an IUD in for birth control, so nope, not planned. 

Obviously I could list hundreds of reasons why it would not be a smart move for me to have another baby. But oh, the heartache of looking at that empty high chair. It's almost unbearable, and I imagine it will be that way for a long time.