Dinner with a gorgeous woman

After a long afternoon at church, I was slammed with school work tonight. I had stacks of papers to grade, and tons of materials to prepare. Supper was the last thing on my mind, and my husband was too sick to worry about it either. Definitely a cereal night!

Then I heard little footsteps coming down the hall, and my gorgeous 8-year old, Katie came into the bedroom. She wanted to know if she could cook supper for me out of her kid cookbook. She was making stuffed baked potatoes. I said sure, not really even listening, because I was so busy.

After awhile, she came to retrieve me for dinner. When I walked into the kitchen, I realized how hard she had worked to create a special meal. She had a reserved sign on the table for the table and place cards for the two of us. She had poured my diet coke into the "special glass" - a glass originally designed for an ice cream sundae. Missing key ingredients, she created her own special sauce for the potatoes with sour cream and ketchup. (the sauce was pretty good, the potatoes had been microwaved until they were too dried out to eat - think hard as rocks - swallowed two entire potatoes out of love.)

We had dinner together, alone, and I realized that she is quickly turning into a gorgeous woman. Inside and out. She loves to contemplate ways to be kind to others and delights in discovering imaginative and creative ways to make other people happy. It was a beautiful meal that I will remember for the rest of my life.

I am so overwhelmed by the richness of my life with my children, especially when I think back to the visits with the fertility specialists and the realization and acceptance that I would never have a child. Then God gave me four - incredible, amazing children.