Babies on the Brain

Sitting here in this basement in Oregon, I am feeling particularly happy. The day was cold but we spent it inside, talking and spending time together, continuing our Star Wars marathon started on New Year’s. I am so happy to be with my mom after being apart for so long. We talk on the phone, of course, but it is not the same. Sometimes it is hard not to begrudge Sean the fact that his parents live so close by. Anyway, for now I will just be happy that I am with my family and safe and warm.

 This is a photo of me and Izzy, my mom's friend's little girl. 

There are a lot of little children around here. My uncles and aunts have children, my cousins have children. My mom lives in a trailer with my two little sisters, so we are staying in her good friend’s basement while we are here. Across from our room a family lives in the downstairs apartment; they have a one year old girl that it just too adorable for words. Not only is she cute, she is quiet and sweet and inquisitive. She does not mind me picking her up and really seems to like Sean.  He, on the other hand, is not so sure.

I snapped this photo-of-a-photo from way back when, down at Cannon Beach with my sisters. 

Sometimes I get to thinking about having kids. Sean and I have been married for two and a half years now, and so far the plan does not include munchkins. I will be finishing at COD in May, and then will start at UC Davis in September. That has me graduating (hopefully) in the spring of 2015. If, and it is a big if, I get accepted to vet school on my first cycle, I will graduate from there in 2019. If I don’t go into the Army, I will have to pursue an internship and then find a job somewhere and work and work and work for years to try to chip away at the mountains of debt. If I do join the Army, I will have four years to pay them back active duty service. That has been “free” around 2023, when I am 31. If everything goes to our silly little human plans. Who knows what God has in store for us!

This is what we woke up to New Year's morning at my aunt's house. 

The reason I listed all that out is because I do not want to have kids and then dump them at a day care center while I go off to work or school. I want to raise my children like my mother raised me: I want to be there for everything. I also want to home school. As a home schooled kid, I plan to home school through middle school and then allow my future kids to choose whether they want to go to high school or not. We will just have to see how that goes.

This is Sean and I practicing trailer life by sleeping in my aunt's trailer with no heat out in the snow. We piled on the blankets and were quite cozy!

We are not taking extraordinary measures, but we are not trying to have children at this time. I trust that the Lord knows exactly what He’s doing, but in my narrow understanding, I do not know how it could work if I did have a child any time between now and when I did not have a school or military obligation to fulfill. And it is not like it is a burden or anything; I guess it is just my womanly wondering. That little question in the back of my mind, pondering.

Sean seems mixed about the whole situation. We talk about everything, everything. When kids are around, he keeps away from them like they have cooties or something. Then, when I tell him my worries about possibly being pregnant (we had a couple scares here and there) he assures me that everything will be fine and we talk about how we would handle it. I know he is going to be the greatest father ever; he is so gentle, so kind, so slow to wrath, unlike myself. That might be my biggest fear, that I would fail my child. That is why I am so glad that at least at this very moment, we do not have to worry about it.