The Countdown

Tonight I fed my son cold macaroni and cheese from the pot while he took a bath. This was a low parenting moment for me. It's a long story to explain how we got into this situation, but let's just say it ended with me pulling a screaming Emerson out of the tub, throwing on his diaper (but not before he peed on the carpet), and handing him the entire pot to feed himself at his own leisure. Which he did...happily if not effectively. I think he must be going through a growth spurt because I've spent most of my days lately feeding this black hole.

Anyway, it's three days until the due date and who knows how much longer until this baby joins the world. The past few weeks have been filled with a lot of pain - physical pain from a baby who thinks it's funny to put me into early labor every night and constantly flip somersaults; and mental pain - from our attempt to buy yet another house with mostly disastrous results. Our realtor keeps assuring me it's not usually this hard to buy a house, which leaves me wondering which real estate gods we angered to run into this much trouble. If, and that's a big if, things go well this week, we are set to close on November 7. Hopefully the baby won't decide to make his debut the same day!

Despite all the muck that is house buying and general daily life, I've also had some pretty amazing moments. Two weeks ago, my friends threw me an impromptu "Blessing Way" ceremony to help me prepare for the birth. They gave me symbolic gifts to help me through labor, wrote things that made me laugh and cry (a good cry), gave me a mini spa treatment, and filled me full of decadent goodies. It was exactly what I needed to prepare and so unexpectedly generous in every way.

Then yesterday, during a particularly low moment, I also got another surprise in the form of a card and gift card from a bunch of the NOAH moms. I've only been able to communicate with these women online, but they still reached out to me and did it exactly when I needed it most.

It's funny what parenting can bring into your life. There are moments like the other day when I poured a pitcher full of water over my cereal instead of milk and thought, "pregnancy and children have robbed me of every functioning brain cell." Or yesterday when I was scooping horrid toddler poop out of a diaper (we use cloth) and I thought, "maybe two children is enough - forget my plans of adopting a third!"

But then parenting has also brought many moments of grace. Sometimes it's in the form of Emerson's laughter and goofy antics, sometimes it's in the form of generous friends and family, and sometimes it's just connecting with parts of you that you didn't know existed before.

Every time I go into false labor lately, I'm filled with both excitement and anxiety. I have a feeling we are in for a hard ride ahead with two little ones, but hopefully we will also have twice as many moments of grace to make the trip worthwhile.