Do you ever walk through a moment or experience and feel like you’re attuned to every little thing? As if all of the details were right in front of you and you could reach out and grasp every element of what’s happening? I’m taking a shot at describing the heightened sense of awareness I feel in just about every way lately, though I probably can’t make total sense of it in words.

I can’t decide if this is just some new level of pregnant mama spider sense, but I don’t remember feeling exactly this way ever before. My sense of wonder is like nothing I’ve experienced. I’m in awe over every detail of creation–every flower, every sky, every little bird in the yard. The rain. A new bug. Our children at every turn. I can’t take enough pictures. Everything about this growing belly amazes me, and I find myself wanting to remember every second of sweetness that happens in a day.

I feel oddly discerning about textures, colors, lighting, sound. I fixate on things that wouldn’t have gotten my attention before, to the detriment of other things that could probably really use it. Nesting is in full force, and it has been…for ages. I kind of remember that being a phase before, but this time around, it feels like it’s been my entire pregnancy. I want things settled. I anticipate tasks I’d like to accomplish long before their deadline. (Except writing here, which I feel married to tackling in real time each day.) A caveat of all of this is that I can see and know how I want something to be or to turn out, but I can’t muster enough time or energy to make it all happen to meet my vision. This season has been a lesson in expectation management over and over. Revisions feel necessary just about every five minutes.

On the flip side of my heightened sensitivity to aesthetics, sound (especially sound), order and creation, I have little appetite for any specific foods and a more limited capacity to manage frustrations (or maybe more accurately, pet peeves). When everyone is talking all at once, there’s clutter from little ones in any (every!) space, someone in the lane next to me is driving down the road looking at their phone, people are chewing ice in the same room or another day has gone by without me tackling a task that’s weighing heavily on my mind, I struggle not to speak up (or at least not to feel a little bit of a skin crawl as I try to push feelings back down). My kiddos know this full well and they could attest. I have so much more bandwidth for awe and beauty these days–something we celebrate together daily. I also have so much less capacity for irritations (please, please stop leaving your things under the couch!) and I know H, E and C are feeling that just as much.

I wish I knew what to do with all of the feelings. I’m sure someone on the outside looking in could easily just chalk it all up to hormones, and maybe that’s right. But this feels more nuanced than that. In a way, it’s like a pregnancy super power on some levels and a real challenge on others. I’m kind of curious to see whether it ebbs and flows as I get nearer to the end of carrying this babe, if it’s exclusive to this pregnancy, or if it’s something I’ll carry with me into this new phase of motherhood with four littles at home. I want to make the best of it, which requires some silver lining focus and honing in on all of the beauty while also intentionally tempering my frustrations. Whether I can do both with some success in these next few weeks remains to be seen, but I’ll surely try.

Even though we’ve been down this road before, this time around continually feels like new territory–always showing, always teaching, always inviting me into new spaces of reliance, dependence and trust. I hope I can honor the process while I’m in it and long after.

MM