I'm sitting in Bellybou' right now. My last hour of my last official day here. We'll all be in here together on Sunday but that won't really count. We'll be moving things and talking and celebrating and reminiscing, we'll toast champagne and possibly sign our names on a wall with sharpies... and it will be a night to remember, just like the night we opened. But it won't be the same as all the hours upon hours I have spent in here alone.

There is something very familiar and therefore comforting about the atmosphere surrounding me right now. I'm perched up on the high swivel chair, face covered by our huge computer screen and my view is framed out by the two large windows that make the entrance to our store. (Windows that have been decorated beautifully in a zillion different ways over the years and now are depressingly empty with ghetto Clearance signs taped in the middle of them. Yuck). The same playlist that we made back in 2008 and played waay too much in here has been on repeat all day long. I know all the words by heart; I don't even hear them anymore, they're more like theme music for my wandering thoughts.

I can't possibly count how much time I have spent in here over the last three years, but you can bet I know how much life I have lived inside this 1386sq ft space. I have realized a dream inside here, I have grown into a completely new person in here.

I have laid tile with my dad and pasted wallpaper with my sister in law. I have leveled shelves and marked out furniture. I have learned to operate a point of sale system and made scary calls to very business like people long before I felt 'business-y' myself. I have greeted hundreds of pregnant bellies, rejoiced with new 'mom to be's and oo'ed over precious new lives. I have comforted a couple crying pregnant mamas and become good friends with more than a handful of them as well, some have even visited my church over the years. I have organized events, and sales and co-marketing campaigns. Ive defied nerves by embarrassingly filming a couple news segments in here and I've killed one very large and deadly black widow all. by. myself. in here.

I've been inside this store at all hours of the night. For construction, for meetings, for late night icecream runs with girlfriends and for eh hem.. alone time with the hubby. (yep, I totally just said that). I've read blogs and books and the bible in here. I stood across this counter from Erica as she listened to me pour out my heart during a dark time; and my feet were in the very same spot a year and a half later while showing her the ultrasound of two little beans in my belly. Sweet Elena was swaddled peacefully behind the cashwrap. I rocked and fed and napped and corralled two tiny babies within these walls, for an entire year. Many many people helped me with that one. :) And I have now, in these past months, held my precious nephew in here as well. I can see Macy in here with her ballet clothes counting our cash drawer and Carter in here with his snacks watching Hayden's Star Wars videos. I planned my kid's birthday parties and doctors appointments and playdates from this computer. I developed courage and 'know how' and faith, right from this spot. I made spreadsheets and bought inventory, I journaled and I prayed. Many many hours I prayed in the silence of this place. I cried in here, but I laughed atleast as much.

So when people ask me how I feel about being 'done' with Bellybou'. It is hard to answer accurately. I praise the Lord Almighty for the chance to end this adventure a couple years early. The relief is unimaginable, I had no idea how much anxiety could physically cripple a person. There are no words to describe the burden lifted. I am so, SO grateful.

It just doesn't take anything away from the sense of loss, though. It's hard not to feel a little sad about saying goodbye to a place you built with your own heart and hands. It's hard not to feel a little silly about having to 'quit' two years early. But those things are just passing feelings, I believe they are normal so I will feel them and then move on. There is a much more solid truth behind them that I can confidently stand on. This past 5 years, (I wrote the business plan for Bellybou' when Carter was in my tummy; we opened a few days before he turned 2 and we'll close a week before he turns 5 ...talk about watching time pass before your eyes!) has shaped me. It has become part of all of our stories and affected who we are, I hope all of us think, for the better. I know I do.

I look above at the list of life I have lived in this place and I am grateful for it. I'm proud of what we accomplished and the people we affected along the way. I like the memories, I will treasure them always. But the very things I have learned within these walls are the very things that make me so incredibly glad to not be tied to them anymore. I am excited to be home. I know now the costliness of a commitment like this when my children are small and my husband is leading a ministry. I am thrilled for the time and the space and the freedom that comes with this release. It can't be put in words but there is something deep and solid and sure in the pit of me that is singing with right-ness over this recapturing of time that I had already grieved over. Thankfulness pours over me like tears. Yes, I am glad to be done. So very glad.

But it doesn't mean I won't miss these walls. I will miss them dearly.

Ah, the dichotomy of emotion. The richness of sentiment. It is all very ME, don't you think? :)

I cried in Walmart today.

I make a concerted effort not to grocery shop with all four kids by myself. Especially at the places that only have carts with front leg holes for one baby. What am I supposed to do with the other twin?! When they were smaller I put both their legs through one hole and then both babies fit, now that would be like squeezing two roley poley sausages into a tiny square key hole. Ouch. And I can't push a stroller and the cart, plus I have two other big kids who seem to immediately increase their dislike of eachother by 1000% the minute we hit the parking lot of a grocery store. PLUS we eat enough food now to feed an army, we cant even fit it into one cart! It just makes for a disaster, soo.. I wait for days off and a patient husband to accompany me as often as I can.

But alas, today, we needed too many things. Diapers being the most crucial. SO as I changed each twin into the last two remaining diapers in the whole house this morning, I knew there was going to be no getting around it. Off the five of us went to Walmart.

As my string bean of a six year old muscled up and pushed one cart with one twin strapped in the front, I strategically took the other two, slightly more 'charismatic' boys, in my cart and we marched our train in and out of the aisles.

There's a certain level of stress contained simply in the managing of that many children and the very long list in your hand, amidst a store that just so happened to be under construction so nothing was where it was supposed to be. So that may have played a part. Add to it the never ending energy exuding from the two boys in my cart which simply refused to be contained this particular morning and then smash it right into the two ladies who decided to comment in less than sympathetic tones, while slowly shaking their heads disapprovingly that
'I sure did have my hands full, Missy'.

I kept my cool all the way to the checkout when one son simply could not handle the tight squeezed line and the firm answer of 'No' to the rows of delicious looking treats that I simply had to stand my ground against after such poor store behavior. The man in front of me could not pull his stare from my son's outburst and then as we waited and waited for our frozen line to move, two ladies walked right past me to the checkout just ahead of me that I had mistakenly thought was a second part of our one line. They glided right up to the checkout and when I went to clarify whether people in my line would be called up first into the open check stand I was met with an eye roll and emphatic 'No'.

There are all sorts emotions that make me cry, but the number one ringer is always frustration and humiliation. And at that moment, both were at an all time high. The hot tears started spilling out, completely betraying my controlled face and for a good couple minutes I looked away from all four of my kids, ignored the continued whining and pulling at my shirt and pants, and stared straight into the covers of Seventeen and Style magazines while I grasped for composure.

I eventually regained it, we made it through our checkout and I marched my little train all the way home, got everything unpacked, everyone fed and everyone down for some much needed rest time. And then I sat on the couch, feeling defeated and sad.

Days like these are hard. I want so badly to see progress and lights at the ends of tunnels. I also want to enjoy these moments and free days and leisurely time with tiny hands in my own. It's such a jumbled mess of exhausting emotions when you adore your squishy, silly entourage of little people and all the laughter and simplicity they bring to this phase of life. While at the same time feeling blinding frustration at the assault on your personal space and agenda, the blatant disregard for your best of intentions and deepest heart pleadings. The sheer robbery of any sense of dignity or capability. How do they make me feel soo incapable??

As I was making my exit one woman that had been in line next to me whispered to me, "Don't worry, in 20 years, you won't even remember."

I know she was offering kindness and I appreciated it, but it didn't bring alot of comfort to my now. Do I feel relief knowing I won't remember? Maybe, if it means my kids and I have such rich and wonderful relationships down the road that I clearly see how little their 'store behavior' actually had to do with the road their hearts journeyed throughout adolescence and adulthood. But still, for my own journey. My own wrestling with my own contentment right now, not in 20 years. I can feel so discouraged; so defeated.

I hate that I struggle with this phase so much, that I can't force calm into my chaotic outings, that I can't always embrace chaos without getting rattled. That I can't even always tell which one is most important in which setting. It's exhausting and I am tired way more often than I want to be.

There is one thing though, that the well meaning lady at the end of my trip did for me. She made me want to remember today. She made me stop and catalog this day in my memory; because now, I have a goal. In 20 years, when my children are doing their own grocery shopping and I am left to my sweet silent strolls through aisles of produce. I promise you, I will follow the cries and the shrieks in the lanes around me and I will find ways to encourage desperate moms. I will smile at them, I will pray for them and I will tell them that their children are adorable and absolutely 100% normal. And I will tell them they are doing a wonderful job raising them.

Sometimes I may even wait at the end of their check out line, hand them a coffee and offer to help them get their groceries to the car.

Mark my words, I will.