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Heart Preparations Revisited. (38)

Today I came across my post from when I was 39 days before my due date with E, almost exactly eight years ago. The words from then are so spot on to what I’m feeling right now, so I’m going to borrow them back from myself here, with an addendum.

July 16, 2013: “There is a lot of time between the moment you find out you’re pregnant and the day you head to the hospital to deliver a baby. A lot of time. Or at least it feels that way, until you’re suddenly just five or so weeks from your due date and baby’s arrival is somehow coming up fast. You start to think of all the things you want to be sure to have done before the little one is born…of all the things you feel like you should do: nursery prep, home organization, deep cleaning, LOTS of baby laundry, more organizing, mentally preparing your other child(ren), catching up on play dates and correspondence, fitting in dates with your spouse, getting some sleep, etc. And above and beyond all that, of course, readying yourself emotionally and mentally for the big day and major life change that’s around the corner.

Is it possible that we can distract ourselves so much with the details of how everything looks and feels aesthetically, that we can miss the opportunity to really prepare our heads and hearts for one of the biggest and greatest days of our whole life?

I’m so thankful that God is slowing my pace down enough to find moments to remind me…Molly, let’s focus on your head and heart. The rest can wait if necessary, but get that part settled first…”

July 13, 2021: Yes. This is exactly right, and so true to things I’ve wrestled in these past weeks. The difference now is that I’m eight years down the line and I think I’ve learned a thing or two about where my focus needs to be. I’m still preoccupied with the other details, and I’m still nesting a great deal (which doesn’t feel like it’s to be avoided), but eight years is a long time to have spent working on my head and heart, and I can certainly mark some progress. I’m more at home in my own skin, more ready and able to advocate for myself, more comfortable being honest about what I want and need, more practical about what’s achievable and what I need to put down. I’m not sure if the people around me always feel like I’m setting more down, but my once non-negotiables have changed. I’m taking things off of my to do/wish list regularly and working on being ok with what I can’t accomplish.

Two more children down the line, life is very different. Expecting this fourth baby, there’s obviously a different dynamic surrounding me than there was with one toddler in tow. Our family has changed a lot, we’ve been through a lot, the world is a different place in ways. It’s just not all the same equation that it was before. Given this, there’s arguably still a learning curve, but it’s a learning curve with eight years more experience behind it, and that’s something.

Eight years ago, I wrote about how I was going to potentially switch doctors after some challenging developments with my original practitioner. I didn’t know then that I’d have a new doctor only two days later–one who has since delivered two of our babies and who is seeing me through this pregnancy, too. His presence and perspective have been a gift all these years, and I’m still grateful to this day for that season back then, when my heart said I needed to consider a change. I trust my mama instinct now more than ever, and even as I was learning where to find it, it was serving me well. I can look back and be confident that just as God was leading in those days, He is leading me still.

I can’t end this post better than I did in 2013, so I’m going to quote the last bit of that reflection to end today’s. It’s exactly how I feel again as I marvel at all that is in front of me. What kindness and goodness flows!

July 16, 2013: “I love these moments at the end of the day, when it’s often just me and baby here on the couch. I watch him or her move without reservation in my belly, and I am reminded of the miracle of all of this…the incredible answer to many prayers that this baby has been all along, and the amazing process that God has designed for us as human beings. How did something so very small and microscopic already grow to have such a prominent place in my belly? In our lives?

Nine months, give or take a bit. All the time in the world and yet, not quite enough to prepare ourselves for the inevitable surprises and delights of childbirth and bringing a whole new person home to love and care for from here on out. I’m working on getting there, with some handful of weeks to go. And when the day arrives, I’ll be praying like crazy for God to bridge any gaps left over–that I would embrace the day with zero reservation and approach this new experience with complete joy in every bit of the process.”

Embracing the patterns and rhythms I’m offered and hopeful to keep growing through the opportunity to revisit them again,

MM

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Small Victories. (39)

These days, I’m learning all the more to appreciate the power of the “little win.” I forget how much effort it takes sometimes to get the troops out of the house or to appointments, and I definitely underestimate the empowering feeling of successfully running errands with everyone in tow. But when we do it, goodness. It does feel good. I think I’ve always been sort of bent toward having the adventure versus staying home, though in the last year or more, becoming a homebody was certainly easier (if not mandatory) that it’s been for me before. Having been home so much, it’s almost like I’d forgotten just how much we all enjoy getting out, too. And there are days when I’m just not up for it and days when I wish we’d kicked ourselves out of the house, so there’s a balance to strike, for sure.

I foresee the days I’d like to tuck in at home, and they’re coming. They’ll probably arrive right around the time everyone is back to school and schedules are in full swing again. That transition period will be interesting for us all, but then fall will arrive and we’ll start to get into the hibernation mode that comes with chilly weather, and for a while I imagine it will feel so good and timely that the seasons are changing in that direction.

Today we went to a play outdoors in the rain, followed by lunch out and three dentist appointments for the kids. I might have been a little tired at the end of it all, but mostly, it felt like an accomplishment to have had an experience together and three successful appointments checked off the list. I have to hand it to our crew, too, because they handled rainy weather and dentist chairs like champs today, which made me awfully proud and grateful. To see our four year old walk confidently down the hall with the hygienist on his own feels like grace and also like time is moving too quickly. I couldn’t help but think, “Who is this young man and how did he grow up so fast?” when I went down the hall to check on him and he didn’t need me there a bit. It’s so cool to watch our kids come into their own. It’s also so sweet of God to give us another chance to watch a little one grow up from the start. My heart has not been ready to kiss the baby years goodbye.

Tonight as I look at tomorrow’s plans and the next day’s and the next, I’m going to try to keep my eyes on the little wins–the moments when everyone is content or getting along, or when all have recently been fed and no one is clamoring for another snack or wondering about dinner time. We’re going to celebrate the days when we get out and about and hold ourselves together, and if I’m learning anything in these years of parenting, we’re also going to celebrate the good times in the midst of outings that didn’t go so well, but that had shining moments in the mix of what felt hard. We’re going to get the ice cream (because I’m learning to live a little in my old age), head out to the beach for an impromptu sunset (speaking this into our lives because we surely need more of it!), stay out in the rain when we’re not yet ready to come inside and sprinkle all the to dos and errands (that we can manage without breaking) in between the fun things.

There’s a lot of summer to be lived yet, and I sure do intend to live it if we can. It might not feel like a season of giant leaps in areas I’d love to be leaping through, but it definitely feels like a better opportunity in many ways…the chance to appreciate what’s in front of us, the pattern of unscheduled days that allow room for small progress and rest, and a pace that feels healing instead of harmful, which benefits us all.

This is the summer of the little win. I’ll take it.

MM

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It Takes a Little Time Sometimes. (41)

J and I were able to get out on a date Wednesday night–our first in a very long time. We both know we need to date each other more often, but life this past year and a half has been strange for everyone, hasn’t it? We’ve spent more intentional family time together in the last eighteen months than maybe ever before, and that’s a great thing. And we’ve had less time just the two of us than ever before, which, in retrospect, has been really hard. Getting out on a date meant that we drove around for a long time trying to figure out where to go and what to do…I think that’s a thing when you’re out of practice with something–it takes a little while to get back to what you know. We also managed to be out on a night when many of the beach town restaurants where we live were all closed because it was mid-week; we just didn’t know it beforehand.

In true J&M fashion, we spent half of our date night in the car. But that didn’t matter. There was no one else along to interrupt our conversation or cut off every beginning of every thought. We adore our kids, we really do. But we’ve realized more and more that we can’t get a full conversation in until it’s really late and everyone else has gone to bed, which is so tricky. Each of our kids has a lot to say and they all have a tendency of needing to share at the same time. We work really hard to make sure they’re feeling heard and seen, so we pause our sentences often. The result is just a lot of fragmented adult interactions that don’t get very far before 10pm. I’m guessing things aren’t about to get quieter any time soon with a new babe in the house, and the 10pm cutoff might not apply for a good while either. 😉 A few hours driving around alone in the car, a sit down meal with just two of us at the table and treating ourselves to dessert elsewhere to stretch the evening out a bit further were timely, healthy and good.

Four hours or so gave us the chance to cover a lot of ground. We talked about all kinds of things, but mostly, things related to life right now, our kids and our growing family. It’s funny how when you’re not with your kids, they’re a good bit of the conversation anyway. It was really helpful to have the time. And as a result, we decided we need to make sure we both get some one-on-one time with each kiddo before the baby comes. Or at least, that I need to have one-on-one time with each of them before then. Afterwards, it will be helpful for J to be able to do that with our trio for a while, and likely, everyone will need it.

This morning, E and I headed out for a few hours, “just the girls.” Or maybe better put as E said it, “the girls plus baby, whether it’s a boy or a girl.” The girls plus baby. Since I legitimately can’t reach my feet without compromise any more, we started out with pedicures to freshen up our summer toes. Goodness, that was the best 45 minutes of pampering I could have imagined today, truly. And we headed to our favorite baby/toy/kiddo clothing shop to really savor the chance to look around, then stopped to pick up lunchtime treats (a gorgeous waffle piled with fresh berries for E and avocado toast for me) at a coffee shop in town. The rest of our time was more practically spent running errands that needed to be run, but having a few hours together to talk and share little moments goes a long way as we move through these days where I’m generally feeling more preoccupied and tired. I will never regret one-on-one time with my people, and I wish I didn’t need to be reminded of it sometimes. Those intentional hours pay dividends in the days and weeks following, and I hope we’ll be able to sneak in a few more dates and a some more time with each kiddo between now and when baby comes. It’s not necessarily easy to carve out the space, but it matters.

I’m thankful for the chance to stop and see what’s right in front of me this week, in so many ways. God has honored my prayers that I could savor what He’s given me, even if I still have room to grow. The reality that He offers me more chances to try again, to do it better, to get it a little more right are tangible evidence of His graciousness to me. I hope I’ll never stop being amazed by who He is or how He loves, and I hope I’ll never stop carving out time with Him or with the people I love the most.

MM

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New Perspective. (42)

I’m 34 weeks pregnant today and had my check-in appointment this afternoon. I was interested to know how baby is positioned, since I can never quite tell myself. Even on the ultrasound a few weeks ago, he or she switched directions a handful of times. It’s so hard for me to know until we’re close to our babies arriving. As hoped, this little one is in the right spot. The timing for checking is funny to me though–I’m feeling so much so differently as of today, and given the discomfort I was in yesterday and last night, I’m pretty sure our babe flipped head down sometime in the past 24 hours. Things definitely don’t feel the same anymore, and the kicks to my ribs and sides that I wondered about are now in gear. Isn’t this process of life growing just incredible? I never ceased to be amazed by it all!

Baby has been so active, which is always a great encouragement to me. I’d rather be jabbed and kicked all day than wonder when I’ll feel movement next. I’m trying to discern this little one’s personality, since I feel like I’ve gotten an idea about the others while they were all still growing in my belly. If anything, I’d have to say I feel like this babe is peaceful…his or her movements are generally fluid, and there’s just a whole lot of joy in this process. It’s hard, sure–a lot of days, actually. But my impression of baby is still that he or she is light, naturally sunny and nurturing a sweet disposition. It will be so fascinating to see if my inclinations are correct.

Six weeks until our due date and I don’t sense in my heart that we’ll wait any longer than that. Things are shifting. I’m in no rush, but I also trust my instincts and have more peace in the process when I lean into them. To have things look as expected in our appointment today was a gift, as all of our appointments have been. I just keep praying that God will orchestrate every detail and protect this little one with every bit of covering necessary. I’m trying to adjust more to our reality that baby will be here soon, and I think even the day I go into labor I’ll be surprised that the time has actually come. What is this life we get to live? And who is this precious little person we get to watch grow right before our eyes?

Baby is figuring out the world upside down now, and maybe I can relate a little. I don’t feel upside down, but I do feel like there’s new perspective waiting for me every day as I learn to mother this sweet little one to the best of my ability. It’s a new adventure every 24 hours. What a beautiful thing!

MM

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Baby Mail. (44)

It’s such a pick-me-up these days when the mail comes and something I’ve ordered in prep for baby has arrived. I’ve held back on many purchases out of an effort to be practical and minimalistic, but there are some items we really do need (or have needed to replace) that have been fun to pick out again. Today, two little sleepers came that are made of about the coziest material I can imagine putting on a baby. I always think about what it must be like to go from a dark, warm, familiar, floaty place to a bright, fast-paced, noisy and highly-texturized environment–with only moments to adjust. I can’t bear the thought of putting anything but soft, gentle, and light materials on a new baby’s skin, and the sleepers that arrived will be just the ticket.

In case you’re curious, the items that arrived today are 100% gender neutral, which I have to say is a category that’s come along way since a decade ago. Before, it used to be all ducks and copious other animals, but now there are so many beautiful materials being used that are just plain, simple and sweet. I’ve made it kind of a personal goal not to buy anything specifically girl or boy-ish, though I see things all of the time that catch my eye. Soon enough we’ll know who this little one is tucked inside, and then we’ll pick out a few things that refresh the baby items we’re digging out of boxes and washing up to put in drawers. It’s hard to believe that all of our baby things are at least nearing five years old, but some of them are even closer to eight or ten. Some things are still in great shape, and others, having lived in bins for so long, are coming out looking a bit washed up and ready to move on. Maybe that’s part of why getting a few new things in the mail for this little one feels so exciting.

I’m not the only one who loves a good mail surprise these days. E is completely taken with everything tiny and new and baby-related–enough so that it would be worth it to have a few new things around just to share them with her. The anticipation for baby grows daily around here, as is evidenced by everyone’s complete infatuation with any baby that comes into view, right down to baby toe inspections and pulling out all the stops for a tiny smile. It’s really such a gift to experience everyone’s eagerness. I don’t think we go a day lately when at least one sibling doesn’t say, “I just can’t wait until OUR baby gets here.” Goodness, what a gift. Our baby. I love the sound of that.

Baby mail is just one way to stay connected to this little one in more tangible ways while we wait and prepare for baby him/her self. It’s hard to be so eager and to wait without little handholds along the way. I know we have some weeks to go yet, but things are feeling much more real and plausible and close, which I think is a relief to all. This has been a journey; while we’re still on it, it feels better and better all the time that the day is coming. How are we at 44 days left on the countdown already? We’ll blink and it’ll be 30 days, then three weeks, than eventually, “Any day now.” When that time comes, having a few sweet new items to share with our littlest will be icing on the cake. I hope they’ll remind us of the wait and how there truly was joy in it. All of this anticipation is so worth it and makes everything that much richer as it comes.

Grateful and sleepy,

MM