Spatula Sentiments

At this time last year I was counting down the hours to the ultrasound that would tell me if my baby was a boy or a girl. I'd been having vivid dreams starring a "little boy with sunshine in his hair" at all ages of childhood and was so very worried that I'd find out we were having a girl and I'd carry all this guilt over dreaming about a boy. Turns out my dreams were right on!
While obsessing over this I was also choosing floor tile for the kitchen upgrade Kyle and I were planning. I remember putting every tile sample through the "Spatula Test". This test consisted of imagining the way the tile would look with my sweet baby playing happily with a spatula and some bowls on the new kitchen floor. I don't know why, but it was an image I cherished throughout my pregnancy, and come to think of it, for many years before the pregnancy as well! I loved the vision of sitting in a sunny kitchen while my future baby happily played and babbled away on the tiled floor. The final decision for the tile came down to the one I thought a baby would find the most interesting, a pretty blue and white tile with lots of different shades of blue flecks in the pattern once you get close up.
This morning, that vision became a reality. As I was packing Kaleb's bottles and food for the day I remembered my Spatula Test and smiled. I reached into the utensil drawer and pulled out the wooden handled purple silicone tipped Williams Sonoma spatula we received as a wedding gift. I went into the cupboard and pulled out two of my colored tupperware bowls, a yellow and a green. I then strategically placed the items around the kitchen to be "discovered" and went and got Kaleb from his pack and play and set him right down in the middle of the kitchen floor. It didn't take long for him to find the new toys I'd stashed for him, and soon he was happily banging that spatula on the floor and knocking the tupperware all around. It was a moment I never ever want to forget, the baby I had dreamed about for years finally there in real life, contentedly playing with a spatula on my beautiful kitchen floor.
This morning, it was so very rewarding to be a mother!